- 59 READING READINESS By. A. N. Gillett . UNESCO Specialist in Teacher Education
After-all that has been said about "reading readiness" it only remains for me. .to draw together the threads and focus our attention, on some.of the practical applications.
I ought, first, perhaps, to admit that I cannot claim to be an expert on the-teaching.of'reading. My experience is’limit
ed to the remedial;coaching needed by the backward children in the intermediate Grades and to three-or four of my own children, on whom I have experimented extensively much to the disapproval of Mrs. Gillett* . Nevertheless the description of what happened may interest you*
The oldest boy was an asker of many questions and .until he went to school to talk with him was sheer delight. He asked in
numerable questions such as "Dp ants know that they are ants?"
'.'The fire is burning very fast; is it in a hurry to go oUt?" and so on. You would guess he might become a great reader. Like all English children he begah school at five years and all the sparkle went out of his .conversation. He entered keenly into the games with reading apparatus which was played at home. Cards with sen
tences which needed to be taken, or as we said "mailed" to dif
ferent -parts of the room such as "Close the door," or "Here are the windows," or "This is the table."' Other cards were circular and needed to be revolved to make sentences. Others were senten
ces and pictures which needed matching. These games wei^ never imposed but were demanded by him and he learned to read quickly and early.
When a te~t was made of twenty or thirty schools near ray home, the schduj. with the best results was one in which every child in the class of six years old had a different piece of card board apparatus made by the teacher and the apparatus, was passed round from desk to desk. This enable them to make a fly
ing start with their first book.
Like many real life stories, ray first boy’s has not a happy ending.. After learning to read early hd’has now given up reading from about 8 years to 15 years except when his school work demands it. This may"'be due to the loss, of the use Of one eye.
His younger brother, has1a more sluggish mind and asked few-, er questions but was always very sociable. "I want to be as near you as you are," he said one night. His sociability took the
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form of telling fantastic stories at the age of four, and five.
He may have been discouraged by his brother’s success but any
way he refused all offers to help with reading until he was al
most seven years old; then he virtually learned to read in three weeks. Every night he was waiting for me to get home.; every morning when I woke he would bring a book into my bed and start reading to me. He has never become an intellectual, he is too fond of cricket and football for that, but he has become quite a reader.
The next child is a-girl. By the time she was ready to learn she was nearly six and at that time I had at my disposal innumerable easy books for the learning of reading such as these I have here from the library of the Teacher Training College where I was working. She read these at the rate of one a day for most of one vacation. Many teachers say that this kind of book when suited to the ability of the child is so attractive and so good that half the problems of reading are solved and no reading apparatus is needed. The choice for teachers here seems to me to be between making reading apparatus and writing and mi
meographing small books. If each member of a course such as this wrote a little book in the vernacular for Grade I or II the'Cen- .ter could mimeograph sufficient copies for each school represent
ed to have one each of the fifty different books. These could be passed from child.to child.
The teaching of older children who have failed to learn to read illustrates some other points in reading readiness. One of their main difficulties is that- they have lost confidence in themselves through being slower than others in learning. Some
times they never passed through a stage of reading readiness, sometimes they were ripe for reading and the chance was missed, but in either case, by the time they have reached twelve they usually have a dislike of books and reading and reading readiness has to be re-created. One of the best ways is to find some acti
vity at which they can prove themselves successful and let their newly, found confidence flow over i» to reading. Confidence has this quality of liquids! I remember a young friend of uine who had a fear of matches and would not dare strike one though he was already seven. He learned how tc ride a bicycle and then rushed to his mother in the kitchen and' said "Give me a box of matches quickly. Now that I can ride a bike I think I can strike a‘match."
Perhaps you have noticed that there are two kinds of class
room; in one, children generally do things right; in the other, they generally make mistakes. You don’t have to listen long to the teacher to tell which kind she creates. I need hardly tell you which promotes reading readiness. Much may be learned from the
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attitudes of the older children who are in difficulties about the' way younger children should be prepared for reading.
It’s high time that I listed some of the practical things you can do to foster reading readiness in the vernacular or in English.
1. Increase .the child’s effective vocabulary by enriching the child’s experiences, e.g< .visiting the market, riding in a boat, visiting the.6ea. Seek support for this program by using the P. T. A. to secure the understanding cooperation of the parents. Sharing periods will be improved.
2. Develop the play experiences by sand and.clay, a minia
ture shop or house, and promote conversation about them. En
courage them to talk about these things at home.
3. Make collections of pictures from magazines to promote conversation.
4. Drawing and painting, modelling and.making things from scrap materials as a basis for talking.
5. Dramatization, story-telling, reading aloud.
SERVICE SUPREME
A careful man. I ought to be;
A little fellow follows me;
I do not ? "e to •> astray
For fear he’ll go the sejf-same way, I cannot once escape his eyes,
Whate’er he sees me do he tries.
Like me he says he’s going to be The little chap who follows me.
He thinks that I am good and fine, Believes in every word of mine.
The base in me he must not see That little chap who follows me.
I must remember as I go
Thru Summer’s sun and Winter’s snow I am building for the years to be;
That little chap who follows me.
—Author Unknown
