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  • Reading is for pleasure not for duty...

    Friday 25 March 2011

    Categories: Education, Parenting, Role Models

    It sounds such a good idea – Michael Gove’s pronouncement that every child should read 50 books a year, (Daily Telegraph 21/03/11) roughly one a week allowing a couple of weeks off for…good behaviour? But is it? And is it feasible?

    I am not convinced that we either could or should try to make our children read a specific amount.

    Firstly the “could” part: while reading is undoubtedly good for you this fact alone will not enable you magically to transform your child into an avid reader. Every parent knows just how difficult it can sometimes be to get a child to learn their spellings and tables, to do their homework or to practise a musical instrument. And it’s almost impossible to get them to eat their 5 portions of fruit and veg every day. So how likely is it that their teachers or parents, separately or combined, will be able to encourage, nag or bully their young into reading nearly a book a week?

    One method that could help would be setting an example: children ape their parents so if you want them to read you must fill your home with tempting books and let them see you read. Which leads to another problem – how many parents actually read for pleasure? If you don’t, how can you expect your child to? My heart sinks when celebrities seem to boast that they haven’t read a book. If only more celebs would boast about how much they enjoy reading…

    Then to the “should”: I expect Mr Gove believes that getting children to read lots of books will automatically turn them into enthusiastic, happy readers. I wonder how old his children are. If he doesn’t already know he will learn, at about the time they reach puberty, that the last thing a teenager will do is what her parents want her to do and that being “made” to read will in fact produce more reluctant readers rather than avid ones. It’s about drawing them in, showing them how books can stretch your imagination, show you worlds undreamt of. It’s about them realising that if you love a book then the film of it usually disappoints because you have created your very own version in your head and no Hollywood producer can do better. Force-feeding won’t lead to a nation of joyful readers.

    In her first term at senior school my daughter was made to read a book every week and to write a review of every book she read. Result? It took all the joy away. She read fewer books and it was months before she rediscovered the reading bug. Leave ‘em alone I say. Show them, tell them but don’t try to make them.

    Posted by Alison Morris

Your comments

Such a sensible article – thank you Alison! I am an avid reader as an adult but, interestingly, as a child I preferred to reread familiar books I knew and loved (and I lost count of the times I read ‘Heidi’, ‘Black Beauty’ and ‘What Katy Did’) rather than reading something new. I was ‘made’ to read ‘David Copperfield’ at school aged 12 and it almost put me off Dickens for life. It was only as a second year English undergraduate that I came back to Dickens, to find I loved his novels at that stage (and ever since). It’s good for children to see parents and other adults in their lives enjoying books themselves and, when you get to the stage that you can share the same books, this can open up a wonderful dialogue. But it can’t be forced and certainly shouldn’t be prescribed.

By J Berry on Friday 25 March 2011

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