RóiseMcGagh writes about just how important reading is, and how you can encourage your kids to pick up a book
Can you recall the smell of that perfectly flat, untouched paper, the cracking of a stiff spine, and the feeling of excitement after reading the blurb of a new book you have been dying to get stuck into?
Not everyone relates to books in the same way, or has fond memories of reading as a child and this is more likely to be the case the nearer you are to Generation Z. However, for some readers, there might be a special place in your heart for the fiction author that accompanied you through your formative years.
International Children’s Book Day (ICBD) is today (April 2). Since 1967, every year on the day of, or around Hans Christian Andersen’s birthday ICBD is celebrated with the aim of bringing attention to children’s books and inspiring a love of reading in young people.
This is an ideal time to take that inspiration, while everyone is shut up indoors together, and get in some quiet time during the day specifically for indulging in a good book.
Elaina Ryan, CEO of Children’s Books Ireland (CBI) explains to The Irish Catholic just how beneficial reading is for children.
“Schoolwork is one part of reading, but from our point of view it’s much more than that. It’s about the imagination and the potential to escape,” she says, explaining how children can often find characters in books that they can relate to and are then able to explore difficult topics that they might be facing into in a safe way.
A lot of kids might be finding it difficult to be stuck inside all the time, or possibly worried about how the current pandemic could affect their loved ones. Reading can be a safe escape from that, and it can also lead them to a new positive perspective.
“So, if children are feeling anxious, if they’re feeling lonely, if they’re feeling sad about the way that things are – they may be missing family and friends and they’re out of whack with their routine – they can find a book where somebody else is feeling like that.”
“I think that capacity to empathise comes from reading fiction; you’re putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.
“They say the books are windows and mirrors; you can look in on somebody else’s life, but you can also see yourself reflected in there,” says Elaina.
CBI have reading lists on their website with different themes – one of them being mental wellbeing.
The National Literacy Trust in the UK They found that children who read more are three times more likely to have higher levels of mental wellbeing that children who are less inclined to read – which is a massive difference.
The 2018 report was based on their eighth Annual Literacy Survey of 49,047 young people aged 8 to 18 in the UK.
“The positive side of this awful, awful pandemic is that there are so many resources out there for children and parents and they can actually be overwhelming – but a lot of them are on screen,” says Elaina.
Neuroscience research from Millward Brown and Bangor University shows that paper-based content is better connected to memory in our brains than electronic content. While a book on a screen is better than no book at all, it’s important to be able to disconnect from the news, TV, the constant flow of social media and take some time for internal reflection.
A bedtime story is brilliant for winding down before going to sleep and can be a great routine to get into. Not only is it good for engaging kids in books and helping them mellow out but it can also be comforting to hear a parent read. And it’s not just for small children, it has been shown that reading to a child for 20 minutes a day can significantly impact their vocabulary, and how they perform in school.
“Don’t consider reading as a school activity, because I understand parents will have things sent home and they need to do paired reading, or they need their child to read aloud to them. I would say separate all those things and if you want to read a book to them as a comfort to them at bedtime do that,” says Elaina.
Borrow Box is the app run by Irish libraries and at the minute while they are closed due to Coronavirus (Covid-19), anyone can sign up for a library card for free online, without having to confirm your proof of address. You get a temporary library number and you can set up a library PIN with which you can access the online collection.
There are also a lot of independent Irish bookshops that are still operating online. Books Upstairs, Columba Books, The Gutter Bookshop in Dublin are open and Kennys Bookshop and Art Galleries in Galway is doing free delivery.
People in the UK have been stockpiling books for a stint in isolation, with the sales of fiction having recently risen by a third and children’s education rising by 234% to one of the highest levels on record. Waterstones saw their sales online increase by 400% in a week.
“What we’re seeing is family members are sending books to the kids in their life that they can’t see at the moment,” says Elaina.
Reading at bedtime is one way to get kids interested in books but how can parents nurture a love for reading?
Elaina advises to let them read what they want, “If parents have the means to order a book for a child that they have chosen themselves, that’s massively powerful,” she says. So instead of trying to suggest titles you loved as a child upstairs or forcing your child to read a classic or something educational, which might not be their taste, let them decide.
Letting them read for pleasure and allowing it to be separated from school and from English homework means it is something fun that they want to do. Even if they want to go for a picture book despite being able to read independently, or if they want to have a look at the paper despite being too young to understand it you want them to feel like it’s enjoyable instead of something they feel obliged to do.
“We don’t want this to be the broccoli of their day,” says Elaina. She has two daughters herself aged two and four, but they like to have a look at the paper. She understandably has a large selection of picture books at home and says sometimes she is surprised at what they pick out: “There’s stuff that I would have assumed would be too sophisticated for them or that wouldn’t appeal and they pick it up and they love it and other stuff that I’ve bought for them, they don’t like and that’s okay too.”
Something else that can have a big impact on motivating kids to read is seeing their parents do it. Most kids aren’t aware that their parents are readers because they do it when they’re gone to bed. Even leaving your own book around the house can help. Children often model their behaviour off of their parents so if you’re on your phone or watching Netflix a lot, they will do the same.
The O’Brien Press are running a Design-a-Cover Competition with CBI, where kids re-design the cover of Gordon Snell’s The Supermarket Ghost, first published in 2007. The competition closes on May 1 and the winner will actually get their cover printed on the published book.
CBI also have a writing competition for third to sixth class pupils with RTÉ Junior for their We Love Books podcast. The 10 shortlisted children will get to record their story, which will be included on a podcast episode among books and other goodies.
Laureate nanÓg Sarah Crossan is doing Instagram live sessions with poetry prompts; Sarah Webb is doing creative online classes with Museum of Literature Ireland; Oliver Jeffers is doing daily readings of his books on Instagram; Chris Haughton is reading picture books on Facebook every evening; Chris Judge has made his Lonely Beast apps free to download and his colouring book of girls and sports is also free to download from the 42.ie and publishers Futa Fata are doing a Scéal an Lae as Gaeilge on their Facebook page. There are plenty of ways and resources now available to get your kids reading.