Strangers to Fiction – What Effective Reading Strategies Can Teachers Learn From Parents?
Could parents have something to teach schools about inspiring reluctant readers? Rowan Davies reveals some successful strategies from the formidable hive mind of Mumsnet…
- by Rowan Davies
Reading, rather like feeding, is one of those issues that can stir up panicky feelings of guilt and inadequacy in the stoutest of parental hearts.
We know – boy, do we know – that reading is good for our children. We’ve been told that reading with your kids when they’re young is one of the best things you can do for their emotional and intellectual development.
Conscientious parents all over the country leave dishes unwashed and box sets languishing while they perfect their Pippi Longstocking voice. We pore over the implications of the Oxford Reading Tree; on Mumsnet, one of the questions most frequently asked by primary school parents is ‘What does this reading level mean?’
Parents whose children pick up reading fairly easily can occasionally be observed giving themselves an (understandable) pat on the back. Parents of those who are struggling can (just as understandably) become very downcast, especially if their children have undiagnosed special educational needs.
Conversations on Mumsnet suggest that this heady mix of anxiety and elation at the primary stage can quickly degenerate into howls of anguish as children make the leap to secondary school. Many parents find that their avid readers have turned into book refusers; tiny kids whose online time was limited grow into teens who won’t be separated from Instagram for a moment. Children who always found reading difficult become a whole lot harder to cajole.
Of course, a substantial proportion of secondary pupils will continue to read, greedily and widely – but for parents and teachers of those who don’t, or who never enjoyed it to start with, we’ve collated some tips from the Mumsnet collective…
Shared pages
Getting secondary school pupils reading with and to each other can be extremely effective. One Mumsnet user wrote about her son’s experience: ‘After about the age of eight or nine he was reluctant to read any new fiction. This all changed when he was about 15 and one of his teachers encouraged him and some friends to start a fortnightly book club in their lunch hour. She helped them get the discussion going and suggested books they could try, but generally left them to organise themselves. Now at the grand old age of 24, he still belongs to a book club he helped establish at uni.’
The Writes of Women blog also has a fantastically encouraging post about a ‘reading buddies’ experiment in a school in Barnsley, where Y11 boys regularly read with Y7 boys. There were apparently good results all round (and lots of new friendships on the school bus).
Natural devices
Think about the use of tablets, phones and consoles at home. This is one of the thorniest parenting issues, and each family will come to its own conclusion – but let’s just acknowledge that most older children don’t experience the yawning chasms of entertainment-free time that drove so many of us to books when we were young.
Sunday afternoons are no longer a choice between doing homework, watching the Antiques Roadshow, or escaping to Narnia; thrilling creative narratives are now permanently available on a screen near you. Some Mumsnet users advocate a Luddite approach (‘Ban tablet computers at home – my son was a bookworm until he got one’); others recommend e-readers to lure in the technologically obsessed; still others argue that the creativity and imagination displayed in the best games and websites are perfectly good substitutes, and often do, after all, involve reading.
One thing’s for sure – if you yourself as a parent are permanently glued to your tablet or answering texts at the dinner table, you’re going to be on shaky ground when you ask your teen to put down the handset and pick up a book.
It’s worth schools starting a conversation with parents about this and seeing what they think (without being prescriptive, which tends not to go down well). They may be able to share useful suggestions for encouraging device-free family time or recommendations for book-friendly apps and other helpful digital activities.
Chill out
Try not to pressurise – reading isn’t all about incremental progress. Lots of Mumsnet users talk about their teens re-reading books that they first fell in love with as smaller children, and they’ve noticed that this tends to happen more in the run-up to important exams or after a falling out with a friend. It doesn’t mean that they’re slipping; it can just mean that they’re reading for comfort and pleasure, and what could be better than that?
One Mumsnetter commented, ‘I spend all day reading highly technical and complex stuff. My idea of relaxation is to read something that has medieval monks killing each other and no long words. Children spend all day assimilating complicated information. Their brains need some mush for down time.’
Explore alternatives
Use some lateral approaches, such as audiobooks, comics, graphic novels or even text-to-voice apps, all of which can serve to lure a child back to the written word.
As another Mumsnetter explains, ‘My son hates reading, sadly. I put it down to years of struggling until his autism and ADHD were identified. He loves audiobooks, though. We have recordings of books he loved hearing as a toddler and during preteen years, and he still loves hearing them now.’
Go beyond binary
Don’t give in to stereotypes. Yes, some boys will only want to read about football and cars, and some girls will only want to read about fashion and romance – but peer pressure is strong at this age (let’s face it, many of us find it difficult to resist even as adults), and finding out what really interests a child can be a hit-and-miss affair.
A monosyllabic 14-year-old boy might absolutely love Judy Blume or the Twilight series, even if he’d never admit it to his mates. There’s certainly no harm in leaving them in his eyeline and walking away whistling. Few things wind up Mumsnet users more effectively than thunderingly dull lists of books about football strikers ‘for boys’ and animal husbandry ‘for girls’.
Ask the experts
Finally, never underestimate the influence of a truly great school librarian. We’ve seen high praise for librarians who get it right – ‘Qualified, enthusiastic, worth their weight in gold.’
It’s important, though, that they’re also tactful and supportive, knowing when to let children make their own decisions: ‘My daughter used to go to the library at school but now she won’t, because the librarian does too much directing rather than allowing free choice, which she finds intrusive.’
An energetic librarian can help to organise author readings, competitions and school-wide votes to create a book buzz. A good, well-stocked library is important too: ‘Plenty of up to date, decent condition books and magazines they want to read.’
Date for the diary
Mumsnet Bookfest is a one-day family festival of literature, language and ideas, with speakers including Maggie O’Farrell, Meera Syal, Howard Jacobson and Liz Pichon. For more information, visit www.mumsnet.com/bookfest; Teachwire readers can receive a 15% discount on the cost of entry by entering the promotional code ‘TSbookfest16‘
Rowan Davies is head of policy and campaigns at Mumsnet; for more information, visit www.mumsnet.com or follow @MumsnetTowers
