Help your child form the reading habit

“Nigerians do not read” “Nigerians do not have the reading culture,” These are statements we hear all the time. But they correct true observations, though. But we had the fun of book reading once upon a time in this country, although that activity has since been thrown to the dogs with the advent of the Internet.

But look at where the reluctance to pick up a book and read it from back to cover and narrate what happened has got us now; students who have to cheat to pass exams. Painfully, the general result is what Nigerians themselves call educated but unenlightened people, not a favourable or flattering way to describe us. But you dear parent, if you pump all that money into education, make your child read.

Reading habit is the greatest gift you can give him. Reading is an open gate to the world at large. Your child does not have to go to China before he knows the general habit of the Chinese.

Like the average reader knows, it is a habit you may have to inculcate in the young very early. If you start late when a child has found other means of entertaining himself, you may be up against a child who pushes the book you hold so enthusiastically away while he cries to see that commercial he has seen for the umpteenth time on television.

I understood the magic of books very early in life. Many times, as a child of four, I would demand the retelling of a story, yes, retelling because whoever read that book had mastered it so well that it was told with many enchanting variations and with the book closed. I still remember that book. It was light green in colour, the wrapping of the original hardcover was gone and there moth-eaten holes but it had so many enchanting stories that made my nights then.

Of all the stories my favourite was the one where human beings came out of horses; that was the intrigue. To this day, my imagination of this giant horse that contained people is still vivid. But the most thrilling aspect was that the year I went to secondary school, I had become an avid reader by then; I was searching through our library at home when I came across my childhood book and the story it happened was none other but the way the Greece took the ancient city of Troy-it was a book my own mother read at school, said a reader.

I got my reading habit from home and I think reading is cure for boredom for a child of any age. It keeps them out of mischief too. Also apart from the intellectual development one derives from reading widely, family reading helps to build bonds-children have quality time with parents while they have fun and relaxation together.

Begin with the reading of bedtime stories; read aloud as this stimulates a child’s brain and the child who is read to so early in life is the one who knows how to form the habit early, too.

“Children like to copy and would want to read too” observes a mother that I know.

“I would lie on the bed reading with my seven-month- old daughter by my side. Although I had not started to read seriously to her at that time, but she would pick up any newspaper or book and stared intently at it; anybody who saw her thought she could read too. She did not tear books or newspapers until she started playing with other children.”

When you read to the child, dramatize and deliver the words in the right tone to make it understandable.

If it is serious, give it a serious tone, if it is funny, read it in comic tone. Give each character the right voice and read his words in that tone. When you do, you enjoy the story as much as the child enjoys herself.

Picture books or comics are attractive to children. Sometimes, I think that the older Nigerians are better readers than the younger generation, not because of the TV or Internet influence. They read more, I think, because of the comic books that were available and popular then-books like Conan the Barbarian.

Batman and Robin, Incredible Hulk, Captain Africa etc.; I think that these are books that young children would like to collect to read without having to see them in pictures. I knew a child who started his ‘comic’ by drawing the characters of his favourite characters- he became very good in Art.

Apart from bedtime reading, schedule a time for reading aloud during the day. Start this when they have grown enough to identify large pictures. Show them a picture book and form stories about the pictures.

The adventures of the tortoise are ever so fascinating to children. Children like to read the same story all the time, oblige them because they want to learn every word of their favourite by heart and pretend to read and show off their knowledge.

We were there when our neighbours became converts of a particular sect and formed a formidable preaching group led by the matriarch. We stopped deriding them and looked forward to their visits. The mother would preach, then smugly tell five-year-old Chiedu: “Read chapter one, verse two. Everything was involved in that command, we knew; they wanted coverts no doubt but they wanted to show off also and we were so captivated that it never occurred to any of us to go close to where they sat with all righteousness. Somebody went close one day by mistake and exclaimed in shock; “But Chiedu has the Bible upside down.”

So we gave his teacher kudos for his patience. Many children are like Chiedu, parents douse their interest in reading by not helping them to build their interest in reading. Children should be encouraged to read on their own, as they grow older. Give them simple well-illustrated books. Teach them to know the importance of books by not tearing pages in front of them. Tell her not to tear books until she understands that they have a long time value. Within the time the child watches TV, why not carve out one hour with which to read a book?

As children grow older, parents worry that they have been opened to wider choices of books, which may affect the time of serious study. But you can help them to choose the right time to read books of their choice because recreational reading is known to help them concentrate on their school books. Encourage them to read novels. A teenager already knows that her Mills and Boon, Barbra Cartland, all serial novels end the same way; but they read them anyway to learn writing grammar and rest from the tedium of study. The same goes for Harry Potter and the rest of them.