I still very vividly remember my first ‘reading' book from kindergarten days – Pat and Ann and their little adventures – their daily trips in the school bus, their weekend picnics eating butter and marmalade sandwiches, catching cod or trout while fishing with their dad or Ann helping her mom with her knitting. It was with a sudden swoosh that I got swept away into this hitherto unknown world. And so it was with relish that I started getting my sneak peeks into so many lives — Noddy's latest trouble-shooting venture, adventures of smart Tom or Huck Finn, the latest exploration of the Famous Five or the Secret Seven or the voyages of funny Tintin.
As the pages yellowed and matured, there were the conflicts and camaraderie of Malory High, the romances of Nancy Drew slowly giving way to the hawk eyes of Hercule Poirot or Miss Jane Marple all alongside the sensible Elizabeth, the pretty Jane, the deep dark and incomprehensible Heathcliffe or the very vulnerable Tess. Can you really imagine our journey from childhood without those gazillion life-like characters all literally jumping out of those paperbacks?
It's now universally accepted that children need to get hooked onto reading, the faster the better. And well informed parents these days want to start their wards out with the habit as quickly as possible. Says Gayatri Futnani, an educationist who has been working with a well-known Montessori in Bangalore for the last six years, “Children usually have the natural urge to read when they are around the age of four-and-a-half to five years. In our Montessori lingo it's called ‘explosion into reading' or ‘sensitive period for reading'. Parents and teachers should take maximum advantage of it and not let that slip by unnoticed. It is this phase during which a child tries to read everything — car plates, boards, hoardings, newspapers — anything he or she sees.” She adds, “We encourage parents to start reading to the kids as early as they can, sitting with them initially looking at the pictures together and slowly once they start learning to read, ask your child to read along with you. This, besides being a huge morale booster for the child is also a huge bonding tool between the parent and child.”
Read regularly
Agrees Rina DSouza, also a teacher working with an alternate education school, “Besides the personal inclination of the child, a good way of attempting to inculcate the reading habit is to read to the kid regularly from when he or she is very young. A bedtime story is great. But it is also necessary that parents and the entire household are avid readers even outside the bedtime story-time in order to drive the point home.”
Piya Bose, HR Manager in an MNC and mom of a 10 year old, says, “The only time in the last 10 years, that I have smacked Rohan was when at 18 months, and he ripped apart a Noddy book and tried to eat it! Then a friend gifted a set of ‘indestructible books' printed on plastic boards. Ever since, he has been on a steady stream of book supplies right from his fifth birthday when we bought him a new set of Enid Blytons and Satyajit Ray's ‘Feluda' series.” An avid book lover herself, she says, “Today, our routine is to read before going to bed every night and then the crossword on Sundays. As he is growing up, I am increasingly enjoying his views on a book I read at his age and rediscovering classics that had been forgotten. It is comforting to know that he finds the same pleasure in curling up with a book as I do.”
For his birthday, he actually looks forward to be gifted a book she says. And adds, smiling, “And I am not complaining as long as he is reading, and like me, he loves the smell of new books and loves going to bookstores more than to his PS2. I just hope as he discovers girls and college, his passion for books lives on.” As parents shall we all say Amen to that?
Earliest the best seems to be the mantra floating, in as far as inculcating the reading habit in kids is concerned, four to five years seems to be ‘explosion into reading' period
There is extra effort needed from current day parents to hone kids in to reading since the distractions of television, play stations, video games, computer games lurk bluntly around
A bed time story is the perfect way to bond with your brat – interest in reading, active listening and creativity ignition all comes together here
