Log 008.5 - A Young Mother's Worry: How to cultivate an interest in reading English books

Just the other day, I met with a shop keeper that I usually see when I am about to take the late night bus home from PGDE. Knowing that I was a assistant teacher, she asked me what was a good way to improve her daughter’s interest in reading English books. The daughter was in kindergarten. I shared with her the news article story where Hong Kong-based journalist and writer Nury Vittachi shared his way of encouraging his son to read English books — he brought his son to a bookstore and said he can pick any one book; when it was a Pokémon book, he felt it was a bad book, but still bought it for his son anyways; his son read 38 of these Pokémon books. The subject of these books may not have agreed with what Vittachi thought of as proper books, but they captured the interest of his son, and in turn fanned the curiosity and interest of continual reading. The shopkeeper said that sadly, her daughter vocally expressed her lack of desire to read any English books and wanted to leave when brought to a bookstore. Luckily, as we talked more, I was glad to hear that the mother read English bedtime story books with her daughter regularly in the evening, and the daughter enjoys those moments. She showed me what the daughter was learning in school (letter tracing and simple vocabulary that starts with the alphabets that they are tracing) and said that they even have some alphabet cutouts that could be hung on the wall, though she felt that her daughter wouldn’t want to be taught it at school, even though she sometimes utters English nouns when she sees them in real life (eg. elephant). I haven’t studied in depth the development of toddlers or young kids, but I already felt encouraged — the parents are active in the kids’ development and involved in the learning and teaching of English. The mother, in fear that her daughter would follow in her footsteps in having a "weak foundation", started to read up on English books too.

"Maybe if she sees me also reading English books, she will not resist reading English books as much."

To me, one of the essential factors in cultivating an interest in reading English books is the environment - whether it is in school, at home or out in public areas - allow for a safe and accepting learning environment, one which allows for learners to make mistakes and improve without being in danger of being made fun or reprimanded. The fact that the mother is already trying to engage in meaningful (to the child) activities in English with her child is encouraging. This is the first step in cultivating interest, making the subject relevant and meaningful (if not also fun) for the child. I hope that her late night job doesn’t take away quality time with her daughter any more than she’s worried it will. I remembered that my mother used to drive us to a local library in Canada, and we would spend a whole day there just finding interesting books to quench your curiosity. Since the the library had a book limit of 100 books (per person? or for all four of us, including Dad), I remember reading in the library and bringing home a box of books to read over the weekend. It was a simply lovely way to spend the weekends with family.

Before I left to catch the bus, I parted with the shopkeeper a real life story I’ve heard during teacher development courses about a single mother who had to quit school in form 3 to raise her son. Wanting to instill the value of persistence, the mother chose to learn English alongside her son, even turning to asking her son how certain words are pronounced or what the words meant. She eventually took the IETLS and scored an overall 7 out of 9, which are on per, if not sometimes higher than the minimal requirements of English proficiency that university students must reach in order to be admitted to Bachelor's Degrees. As her son was about to take the local public examination (HKDSE), she told her son that if even her, who never finished secondary school, can obtain a good grade for English, there was nothing that he needed to worry about. Learning is a lifelong process. If parents, in the midst of asking their children to value their education, don’t value their own education or even bother to continue learning new things, being curious about the world, and being diligent and persistent when learning and life gets tough, how can they honestly ask the kids to do the same?

What kind of a role model does that make?

Many people don’t understand the importance of learning through being. Be the kind of person with the kind of values you want your kids to be. Say no to “do as I say, not as I do”.

#PGDE #education #parenting #rolemodel #lifelonglearning #learningReading #reflectiveblog