PROMOTING READING CULTURE AMONG SCHOOL CHILDREN

Abstract

This paper contends that School and parents’ have pivoting role in promoting reading culture among children. Reading has a significant role in the education of an individual, especially, in young children. It is a basic skill yet; its importance can’t be under estimated in the success of individual’s career.  Therefore, it is most essential to cultivate reading culture among children from their early age to motivate them for a future academic excellence. But unfortunately, nowadays, many children do not have reading habit except their textbooks. This serious problem existing in our society can be eliminated with some joint efforts of parents, teachers and school ensuring the reading culture of children. This article attempts to explore some methods how school, school teachers, and parents can motivate children in reading, ultimately cultivating reading culture among them from their childhood ensuring their excellent academic career.

Key Words: Reading culture; motivate children; parent and teachers; role; home/school environment

A guardian comes to my office and complains about his daughter that she never reads at home. I wonder when he takes her name as she is the best student of school in our record. I defend that she stands first position in the class with distinction result and there is not any complain from any teacher against her. He explains me that his daughter simply completes given assignment and never bothers with reading extra books. ‘I am satisfied with her grade marks but not happy with reading habit’, he bitterly shares the fact expecting me to find the solution to the problem. ‘My child hurriedly finishes her writing assignment and never opens book for reading at home’ echo in my head.

 As a Head Teacher of the school, I put the topic in the staff meeting but all the teachers unanimously put the views that she is a brilliant student and does every assignment on time. All the teaching faculties are satisfied with her academic performance but none of them is worried about her extra reading activities. They put the views that she is quite good in their subjects but her father’s concerned is still remained unanswered to me. I am shocked to know that a student, who stands first in the class, doesn’t study except textbooks and, still, her teachers are happy with her performance. I ponder over the question ‘Are we promoting reading culture among our school children to make them stand on their own feet academically or our textbooks are sufficient for their reading?’ The question pins my mind sharply and I promise to explore the roles of the concerned to promote reading culture among school children.

As a head teacher, we are often encountered with the issues of habit formation of children and promoting reading habit is one of the most prominent issues in child’s life. ‘The problem of reading among students and young people is one of the urgent problems of our time.’ [Sadykova, Yashina & Sharafieva, 2014, as cited in Kamalova,. & Koletvinova, (2015, p. 474)] Obviously, no one can under estimate the significance of reading culture but very few of us pay attention to it. ‘How can we promote reading culture in our children?’ Definitely, they need proper guidance and environment. We teacher and guardian can play vital roles at school and at home for their reading habit formation. If we pay attention to little bit time, and resources, it is possible to enable reading culture among our children. In this article, I attempt to share how school and home can help children to develop reading books going beyond textbook reading culture.

Reading habit is most essential not only for the person to get success in the life but also for the society. According to Kamalova, L.A. & Koletvinova, N.D. (2015, p. 483), ‘the level of intelligence of the nation, the stability of its development and prosperity, the country’s competitiveness are directly determined by the level and quality of reading of the young generation in the society’.  It helps anyone to be prepared in the competitive society. It is important to cultivate reading culture from the childhood. School and parents’ collaborative efforts definitely help to create good environment at home and school reinforcing the child involving in reading activities. Let me explain how home and school can play key roles in shaping reading habit of children.

Creating Home Environment

It is widely accept that home is the first school of a child. A child’s performance is determined by the treatment and the environment that parents provide for him/her. Parents can apply various strategies to cultivate reading culture in their children as “Research has shown a clear link between parent involvement and children’s success in school. Further, studies have also demonstrated a correlation between parent involvement and children’s educational development and subsequent intrinsic academic motivation.” (Usher, Kober, 2012) The parents can motivate their children “Through their parenting choices and actions, parents communicate a set of values and family characteristics to their children; these can affect how children conceive of their own identities, abilities, and goals” (Usher, Kober, 2012). Here Usher and Kober discuss about how parent shape the overall culture of a child.  

Firstly, Parents can create home environment to promote reading culture for their children. They can make book corner in their room consisting of literatures where a child can go in leisure time for reading fairy tales, rhymes, novella and religious stories. It arouses curiosity in the child to read more and more. Research has verified the fact that the "opportunity to read" or the availability of books plays an important role in awakening reading interests. The number and type of books read is determined to a great extent by the reader's "book environment". (Bamberger 1975) Therefore, Parents can create this environment at home so that their children go for reading books rather than indulging other activities.  Obviously, it takes time but the parents must have a book corner at home to help their child reading beyond textbooks. In other words, parents involving actively in children’s education can provide stimulating learning environment at home.

Secondly, the parents can encourage children by ‘Reading and talking to children, celebrating their learning with them, and providing opportunities for creative exploration can also encourage factors associated with motivation’ (CEP 2012). If the parents read a lot, they can inspire their upbringing for reading at home. Bedtime stories, sharing stories from books, talking about the books, sharing book experience, reading books together with child, may motivate a child for reading intrinsically. As a matter of fact, children who are surrounded with good books of various kinds and who are helped by their parents reach out well beyond the classroom activities, …personal ideas . (Ogbonna, & Obiozor, 2009).

To sum up, a family that consistently demonstrates a respect and   interest in books and reading helps students develop the comfort and curiosity they need to achieve academic success and lifelong reading habits.

Creating Environment at School

Another good way of making a child read is creating school environment. School can make different strategies to cultivate reading culture in its children. ‘It can provide the facility for selection of relevant materials at school, can allocate of library period in the school time table, can organize Story Hour for children, manage the use of film shows, or even can  form Readers Clubs’( Ezema, I.J.,2008). If the school provides sufficient materials for reading and encourage the children to read, it would be the most effective to cultivate reading culture. School even can make the library period formally during that time student can go to the library and can have fun reading. This will promote the habit of reading for pleasure. Students will not be compelled but will be encouraged to read the book of choice out of their course.

Likewise, school can form a Readers’ Club among the pupils and can form the certain rules of reading books and sharing among friends. It will definitely make the student read more books and unconsciously they may be attracted to reading habit.  It is claimed that ‘to be effective, schools with large numbers of children at risk for reading difficulties need rich resources manageable class sizes and student-teacher ratios, high-quality instructional materials in sufficient quantity, good school libraries, and pleasant physical environments’ (Snow, C. E. , Burns, M.S. & Griffin, P. 1998). Therefore, if the school environment is created, it helps in a great deal to promote reading culture.

Teachers’ Role

Teachers can play significant role in shaping the behavior of a child especially in promoting reading culture. They can motivate the children to read more with their teaching methods. They may give them the project work like writing book review, sharing the book experiences in the classroom. They even save certain time during their period to share book experience daily it will definitely motivate the students to read the books. Teachers are students’ role model and students follow to a great extent to the teachers. If the teachers share the content of the books to tempt them to read more, which may lure the students, read more. They can encourage students by talking about reading books, recommending best books’ names.

Teachers can motivate them in their every meeting for reading. Bamberger, R. believes that teachers who give their students "small doses" of the importance of reading every day … these teachers will have made a majority of their pupils so accustomed to working with books that they will not give it up later (1975).

The teachers themselves can be the best example of voracious readers and can inspire the students. Students are easily inspired by the personality of teachers. If the teachers have reading culture, the students cannot remain aloof from their activities. They will learn how to read and what to read from their teachers. Teachers are the people who can easily inspire the children. They can inspire, motivate and help by recommending the best books and asking to share the experience of the book next day. As students are most obedient to the teachers, teachers can take this as an opportunity to change the course of students’ life by cultivating the reading habit. As the proverb goes ‘Don’t give a child fish but teach them to fish’, it is the responsibility of every teacher to teach their students to read the books. It is not merely teaching books but teaching how to read books. If the children are taught how to read a book, they can enjoy reading book. It will be no more pressure reading rather they will start reading books for pleasure. This will hook the students with the books.

In a nut shell, a teacher, being a role model of a pupil, can play vital role in cultivating reading habit in children. It is possible to get the children to read not with force but with motivation and inspiration.

Participating in education related activities:

The children are always curious to meet new places and new people. We can take this as an opportunity to expose them to a new environment. We may have public library in our surroundings, where we can take them and make them its members. Ramos & Krashen (1998) have carried out a study that demonstrated the value of using the public library to provide children more access to books. Without appropriate access to books, children will be taught to read, but will not develop the habit of reading.

Likewise, if they are taken to book fair, they can select the book of their choice and know how other people are selecting and buying the books. Similarly, we may have the occasions like ‘Meet the Writer’ or ‘Book Releasing Functions’. These occasions provide them the opportunities to get the new books.  If children participate in such education related activities, they will be motivated for reading and ultimately they will develop reading culture. The power to excite students about reading is evident when they shop the Book Fair independently and select a book to enjoy. The power of this independence cannot be underestimated and helps to inspire a lifelong love of reading. At the same time we can encourage them to buy the books of their choice and gift to their friends on their special occasions like Birthday or Friendship Day. This types of practice also may help in the formation of reading habit.

               

Conclusion

No one can under estimate the role of reading culture for the success of individual life. Every parent wants their children to be voracious readers but nowadays, children are not getting involved in this habit. How to arouse an appetite for reading books is a big challenge to every guardian of children. As a responsible guardian of children, the parents and teachers can play the important role in cultivating reading habit among children.

Reading culture plays role in shaping the career of an individual’s life. Therefore, it has to be developed from the beginning of childhood. Promoting reading culture in children is a challenging job, yet it can be managed if we could follow some measures. The parents, teachers and school administration can play the key role in creating the reading culture of children.

 

 

References

 

Bamberger, R. (1975). Promoting the reading habit. Peris: The Unesco Press.

Center on Education Policy (2012). What Roles Do Parent Involvement, Family Background, and Culture Play in Student Motivation? The George Washington University, Washington, D.C.: Graduate School of Education and Human Development

Ezema, I.J. (2008). The Teacher Librarian and Promotion of Reading  Culture among Nigerian Children. The Nigerian Library Link. 6(1), 73 – 81, Retrieved from  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283300825

Kamalova, L.A. & Koletvinova, N.D. (2016), The problem of reading  and reading Culture.

 International Journal of Environmental & Science Education,11(4), 473-484

Ogbonna, A. & Obiozor, R.,2009. Strategies for improving reading culture in children in Anambra State. Journal of the Nigerian Library Association 3(24-32)

Ramos, F., & Krashen, S. (1998). The impact of one trip to the public library: Making books available may be the best incentive for reading. The Reading Teacher, 51(4), 614–615.

Snow, C. E. , Burns, M.S. & Griffin, P. , Editors (1998).Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children. Washington, DC:  National Academy Press.

Usher,A. & Kober, N (2012). What Roles Do Parent Involvement, Family Background, and Culture Play in Student Motivation? Retrieved from file:///Users/yuewang/Downloads/UsherKober _Background4 _Motivation _ 5.22.12%20(3).pdf