Sunday, September 06, 2009

Putting the Fun Back in Reading

There's so much emphasis on literacy these days that I think people have forgotten or overlooked the joy of reading, ie, the simple pleasure of reading or listening to a good story – if they ever knew it in the first place.
Where’s the fun gone? asks Daphne Lee in today's Starmag :
It seems to me that many parents want their children to read but they seem to be interested only in the mechanics of reading. They don’t seem to understand that reading to a child will cultivate a love for stories and books, and this might, in turn, encourage a child to want to learn to read.
Something that I think very much needs saying, but I wonder if parents are prepared to listen?

4 comments:

Oxymoron said...

I choose the books that I enjoyed reading as a child and know my kids will not find boring: Famous Five, Rupert the Bear, Agent Arthur, Encyclopedia Brown, Finding Out Magazines, etc.

Argus Lou said...

I knew one parent who feared fairytales would put "unnecessarily fantastical thoughts" in her child. There are all kinds of parents, I guess, but I do wonder how her child turned out.

Kenny Mah said...

@Argus: I would like to believe that her child turned out to be normal just like the rest of us, but with a dash of the fantastical... that's a good thing! :)

@Sharon: Oh but what about teaching the pleasures of reading to adults as well? I think we are a forgotten group... less and less of my peers are reading these days, preferring film versions over the original source material, i.e. books. And if no films are made of these books? As one of my friends put it, "Then it's probably not very exciting in the first place, what."

Oh dear. :(

Argus Lou said...

The sad thing was the woman forbid her son to read any such fiction.

I agree re: reading vs watching.
Some things just cannot be translated into film accurately.