This is how all my mornings begin. Not with a “good morning Mama”, not with a hug and a kiss but a request – “read this? Please!” And I am solely to blame. For I have been reading stories to my son since he was two months old and today, at two years, he reads the same stories back to me.
When we grew up, we were all handed the same books to read at school and most of us aped each other’s reading habits outside of school too. I remember crying for a Malory Towers book before my mother even though she had already got me the entire series of Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys just because my friend had them. But still, only a handful of us today from the 200 odd in the same batch have turned into avid readers.
But why make such a big deal about reading? After all it’s well, just about reading a book, isn’t it?
When I started approaching parents for my kids’ reading club, I met with varied responses. Some normal, some shocking. One parent said she was “scared” her daughter would be disinterested in the book and end up wasting her time and money. Another parent did not see any visible benefits of reading compared to going to an art or craft class where they come back with a lovely drawing or some creation or the other. There were no doubt some who did agree that reading is a building block in a child’s life.
Show the same picture to ten children and you get at least ten stories! All different! And all brilliant works of the mind, their creativity bubbling with every word. It’s fascinating to listen to children read books and see how each one perceives them. At a recent reading club session, I showed the picture of a squirrel sitting on a tree to a bunch of five year olds and asked each of them to describe the picture to me. One said that the squirrel is waiting for mama squirrel who has gone to get his food. Another said that the squirrel had climbed the tall tree so he could talk to the moon and the stars and when I further asked him why the moon and not the sun, he promptly answered that the paper is black and so the sun had already set! The third one said that the squirrel was chasing a friend. And when I further probed her about the friend who could not be seen, she laughed and told me that the squirrel had already jumped off the tree and run away!
The benefits of reading aloud to kids are multi-pronged. Reading aloud not only exposes the kids to newer words, longer words, funny words, thus improving their vocabulary, it also helps them improve their sense of sentence formation and tenses as they are constantly listening to “correct spoken English”. Same goes with any language you read aloud to them. It’s the most natural way of learning phonetics and pronunciations. Kids learn about new subjects, discover new places and people they never knew and thus the horizon of knowledge expands. They learn how to listen carefully, pay attention. They learn how to think about the different situations that they come across in each story – be it dealing with a burst balloon or a lost dog or overeating chocolates and sweet-meats!
Reading aloud also translates into enhancing their writing skills; the kids are now thinking in the right language, carving beautiful sentences and stories out of their thoughts, compelling themselves to think out-of-the box about everything – one kid also told me that the squirrel was just sitting on the branch of the tree and dreaming about Spiderman!
They also learn to appreciate various art forms. Children’s illustrated books are replete with amazing art work that could be with crayons or water colours or oil paints, black and white pencil sketches, or even Warli (tribal art from Maharashtra)!
More than anything, they learn to willingly pick up a book when they are perhaps feeling bored or lonely instead of reaching out for the TV remote, video games, mama’s cell phone, or even computers.
A life-long interest in reading books – what better gift to a child than that!
So what kind of books should one buy for kids? Typically, a “picture speaks a thousand words” is the best philosophy for a toddler’s (0 to 7 years) book.
For new born to 3 year olds there are lovely touch-and-feel books, board books with big pictures and smaller words, sparkling books, and even cloth books and bath books! They are harmless (without sharp edges) and cannot be torn! Also, it’s easy to turn pages as they are thick.
For ages 3 to 7 years, any picture book that enhances the child’s imagination, creativity, and vocabulary is good. Each book must fulfill a purpose too. Do you want to teach sounds and rhymes? Do you want to introduce your child to colours or shapes or numbers? Do you want to tell a story or just introduce them to new words? The idea is that with each book you can introduce something new to a child. A single book could also serve many different purposes. For older children (7 to 11 years) longer stories (could be illustrated) and short novellas would make interesting reads. Something they can relate at their age – contemporary, classic, fantasy, or mythological. Reading all genres broadens their outlook and they also start developing an interest in a particular genre of books.
The number of books out there for kids is mindboggling. It would take more than a lifetime to cover all of them. And to introduce them to children and vice versa amid their super busy academic and extra-curricular activity schedules may sound like a Herculean task, but not an impossible one. As a child, when my mother would put me to sleep, she’d read out a beautiful Robert Frost poem, “Stopping by woods on a snowy evening” to me.
“…the woods are lovely dark and deep
and I have promises to keep
and miles to go before I sleep
and miles to go before I sleep.”
And she knew she was reading me a dream.
Vaishali Shroff is a freelance writer and editor and also runs a reading club for children. She has been published in the Chicken Soup India series and her children’s stories have been read-aloud @ smories. Check Storywallahs and Store for more.