Is Story Time a Thing of the Past

This week I finished my thirtieth book of the year. This is the most I have read in a year so far, and yet somehow have managed to do so at the busiest time in my life. It is my own enjoyment of reading that has sparked a greater interest in how people develop a love of reading. Is it natural? Is it taught? Is it a combination of the two?

As a child I never enjoyed reading. I vividly recall my Year 4 teacher making me feel like I couldn’t read, and with the hindsight of being a teacher myself, I can see part of the reason was she didn’t manage paired reading in the class particularly well and didn’t work on building positive relationships with all ofthe children in her class.

I recall only starting to enjoy reading when I discovered ‘Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret’ by Judy Blume in secondary school. Over the years I may have dipped in and out of different genres I preferred, but throughout my adult life I have always enjoyed reading. More and more it has become a much-neededform of escapism, and a way for me to decompress after a long day.

Recently whilst I was stuck in traffic, I saw who I assumed was a parent holding a large story book in the front passenger seat of a car. She was half turned around, reading a story to two young children in the back of the car. They were listening intently to the story; it was so delightful and certainly a positive distraction from the traffic! Fast forward to this weekend, where I observed a woman, and possibly her son, sitting side-by-side reading outside of a coffee shop. It was a sunny, September morning and there was an air of peace that radiated from them. In those two examples, reading clearly wasn’t a one-off occurrence, it was an established and integral part of their lives. 

And yet in contrast, whilst speaking to a pupil about reading he told me he was “too big for stories atbedtime”. But he is in Reception. How could it be that he was “too big”? It was so interesting as although he loved reading, bedtime stories were not a feature in his household. 

I decided to ask various children I worked with in some capacity whether they had story time in their home. Interestingly, most children I spoke with said that had although they had books at home, they read them by themselves. Furthermore, their recollections of story time were from when they were very little.

I found this so intriguing. Books obviously featured in children’s homes, but adults reading to children appears to have a cut-off point at some stage. It made me question both when the cut off was and why. 

My experience in education highlights clearly how imperative it is that young children recognise not only the importance of reading, but have the experience of hearing stories read aloud, with adults modelling expression, appropriate pace of reading, and can learn a variety of new words and their meanings. 

If we solely relied on children’s independent reading, this inhibits children having opportunities to hear what character voices and expression could sound like. It means that whilst reading alone, children could be mispronouncing words, skipping words or missing out on countless opportunities to develop their vocabulary. It also means that when parents need to sign the dreaded reading record book, the focus is predominantly on ‘What have you read?’ or ‘What was it about?’ These are basic retrieval/summarising skills, and not skills focused on thinking deeply about a text and looking at what happens to the charactersin the story and more importantly why. They do not learn why certain words were selected. They won’t be able to easily find the connections and think about the impact of events within the story. They are just reading the words on the pages.

Although there are many facets to reading, in order to develop a child’s reading, there needs to be the opportunity for children to hear someone else read, for them to practice reading aloud to an adult, and also opportunities to read independently and practice reading in their own head, using and applying the skills they have acquired when reading to and with an adult.

Therefore, I guess the next question is how do we make reading a central part of the lives of children? This can be seen by us as adult modelling that we love to read. Whether that is books, the newspaper, magazines or blogs, reading needs to be important in our households. 

It also made me wonder where libraries featured in the equation. And when delved into this, I was fascinated to discover that many children didn’t realise that books were free to borrow from a library and many thought that you needed to pay for a library card. More surprisingly, some children didn’t realise that libraries still existed. Why might this be? Libraries are so accessible and there is a constant stream of new books and new authors being introduced onto the shelves. Long gone are the dusty libraries with outdated books! So it certainly seems more needs to be done to raise the profile of libraries in the community.

Children also need to enjoy the process of selecting their own books linked to their own interests. This can be in a local library where it is free or buying books in a local bookstore. I am such a fan of book swaps – where adults of children of a similar age share books with one another to ensure that they have access to a wide range of books, without needing to purchase them all. It’s a great money saver, but also means that children can talk to their friends about the books they enjoy and recommend to each other.

Reading for pleasure is a beautiful thing, it just requires us to help children see the joy reading can bring.

If you would like guidance on how to support your child with developing a love of reading, reading strategies and phonics, please get in touch.