Why do our children need to read?

I wonder where all of us learnt the things we know…? Was it by listening to parents or grandparents? Perhaps the television or radio furnished us with facts or ideas? For me reading was the foundation of much of my understanding of the world, from a love of poetry, well written prose and exciting ideas beyond my small experience of the world, to how to replace my own windows, cook, and understand aspects of science for my teaching career. Every day, once the alarm has gone off, before I even jump out of bed, I start by opening the ‘newspaper’ on my ipad or smart phone, and reading the headlines, the comment section, the culture highlights and any education news. This sets me up for the day and connects me to the world of understanding.

I firmly believe that without real exposure to reading, deep immersed daily reading, it simply isn’t possible for our children to develop a sufficient understanding of life.

It is common in schools to teach comprehension (let us not forget that comprehension means understanding) in bite sized chunks. We give children a few moments to read a small passage of text, and then expect them, through that small medium, to have sufficient understanding to answer literal and inferential questions, and by year six to give opinions, discuss vocabulary, recognise some parts of speech and make predictions. It is as if we believe that this disjointed approach will enable them to learn and to demonstrate their learning. But the evidence before us suggests otherwise: today a  class of ten year olds could not identify Scotland from a piece that mentioned highland games, tartan and kilts. A whole group of nine year olds did not know what ‘milking a cow’ meant. Nobody in one of my upper junior science groups could tell me which tree a conker came from… This type of understanding is essential if children are able to make connections and understand the work they are faced with.

How can we make a difference to this woeful state of affairs? Easy – open the world by opening a few books; the more and the more varied, the better, and as often as possible. So take note: reading to accelerate through a reading scheme, reading to digest a set number of classics, reading to improve speed or skimming and scanning techniques, all of these strategies count for nothing if the general development of vocabulary, basic understanding, love of reading and knowledge are not part of the foundation of learning.

Happy reading.