Remember the ‘Good old days’ when schools focussed on the ‘Three R’s’? The ‘Three R’s’ represented Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. Well, things haven’t changed that much since that catchcry echoed through the halls of schools in Queensland. Today, the ‘Three R’s’ have been retitled ‘Literacy and Numeracy’. These terms should be quite familiar to most parents as they are the cornerstone to our education today. Something else that hasn’t changed is that education is a partnership including parents and teachers where parents have a huge role to play long before a child even gets to school age.

 

Unfortunately, one important area that parents have in influencing their child’s ability to read is slowly diminishing due to the busyness of today’s lifestyle and the ease of using television as a baby-sitter. One should never underestimate the importance of reading to our children from the day they are born or even when they are still in the womb. Mem Fox, a world-renowned Australian Author is passionate about parents reading to their children and how it is possible to have children reading before school age. Below, we share her ‘Ten Commandments’ when reading out aloud to our children.

 

1. Spend at least ten wildly happy minutes every single day reading aloud.
2. Read at least three stories a day: it may be the same story three times. Children need to hear a thousand stories before they can begin to learn to read.
3. Read aloud with animation. Listen to your own voice and don’t be dull, or flat, or boring. Hang loose and be loud, have fun and laugh a lot.
4. Read with joy and enjoyment: real enjoyment for yourself and great joy for the listeners.
5. Read the stories that the kids love, over and over and over again, and always read in the same ‘tune’ for each book: i.e. with the same intonations on each page, each time.
6. Let children hear lots of language by talking to them constantly about the pictures, or anything else connected to the book; or sing any old song that you can remember; or say nursery rhymes in a bouncy way; or be noisy together doing clapping games.
7. Look for rhyme, rhythm or repetition in books for young children, and make sure the books are really short.
8. Play games with the things that you and the child can see on the page, such as letting kids finish rhymes, and finding the letters that start the child’s name and yours, remembering that it’s never work, it’s always a fabulous game.
9. Never ever teach reading, or get tense around books.
10. Please read aloud every day, mums and dads, because you just love being with your child, not because it’s the right thing to do.