Reading is a skill that has to be encouraged and groomed. The remote seems to have replaced the book. Consequently, reading habit has taken a back seat among students, teachers as well as parents.
Why do we need to read at all? Let’s examine.
How to develop reading habit among students?
Teachers and parents both have a major role to play here. Let’s examine parents role first. It is necessary to catch them young to inculcate this habit.
Parents Role
Read aloud to the child.
Point to the word and stress on it. For instance, in the story 3 little pigs Stress on the words ‘Huff and puff and blow your house in’. Provide the sound effect for the sight words.
Children respond to the stimulus provided to them by the parent while reading. For instance, they may like dad to read one particular book and mom to read another. My daughter as a child wanted her dad to read Peter Pan and I had to read Winnie the Pooh. We were not allowed to switch at any point in time!
If parents are readers, children emulate them. So, parents to be the role models.
Read aloud atleast 4 times / week and 15 minutes per day. Point to the words and make the child repeat while reading.
Play games using words – Rhyming games, I spy with my eyes a word starting with …, scrabble etc.
Teacher’s role
Encourage reading. Plan a class library and permit them to read if their work is done early.
Library should lend books home and the teacher in-charge could encourage the students to narrate the story, or the character that they liked, they could change the plot or the ending.
Encourage silent reading habits.
Role of books in a student’s life
- Books boosts brain development – cognitive development
It improves concentration, memory, creativity and imagination. A research study showed increased neurological connections which lasted for 5 days after reading! Both STM, LTM get enhanced.
- Enhances vocabulary. Sashi Tharoor owes his command over the language to his reading habit.
- They can identify with the characters and thus helps in the affective [emotional] development
- There is a change in the kind of books that one reads over a period of time.
- It teaches resilience – to elicit – Winnie the Pooh and Piglet want to attend Eeyore’s birthday party. Winnie takes a jar of honey as a birthday present. On the way he feels hungry and sits down to eat honey. After eating he realises that it was a gift. So now he goes to the party with an empty jar. Eeyore takes it and says it is good to store somethings.
- Asterix is excellent for teaching life skills. Friendship and loyalty, courage and bravery, importance of unity and to stay away from negative aspects of greed and competition.
Finally, a quote from Walt Disney. ‘There is more treasure in books than in all Pirate loot on Treasure island’
Importance of books for teachers
Books help a teacher to gain the content knowledge as well as the pedagogic knowledge. Content knowledge can be obtained relatively easily than the pedagogic knowledge. Unless you read and accumulate the knowledge one does not grow. That is the very reason continuous professional development is linked to 50 hours of training / annum in the NEP 2020.
Let me give you some examples to establish a need for reading.
- Periodic table has changed over a period of time
- Blooms Taxonomy is not what it used to be
- Assessment pattern has also changed
- Techniques of teaching has evolved. It is not chalk and talk technique any more.
- Teacher’s role has changed from a powerhouse of knowledge to that of a facilitator.
- Reading provides a good vocabulary and a base for public speaking.
To conclude, “A book is a gift you can open again and again.” —Garrison Keillor