The Places You Will Go: It's Not Supposed to Hurt

I've always believed that parents and teachers are way to fussed about their children learning to read. Why is it so important to know how to read? So you can do well in school of course. Ho-hum.

OK, OK, so it's important to do well. It's important for ... erm ... one's self-esteem ... and ... future. Yes, yes, score straight As and get that first class so you can join the rat race and spend the rest of your life paying off a seven-figure mortgage.

Seriously though, I think parents and teachers should lighten up. Reading should be fun, not a bore. It should be a treat not a chore.

If your children love stories and see books as fun and exciting, they'll learn to read soon enough.

Michael Rosen, Britain's children's laureate, has the right idea, as written about in The Guardian (here and here). There's a BBC documentary being aired tomorrow (in the UK) about how he tries to turn the children in a Cardiff primary school into book lovers.

Rosen says: "Books are low-tech, portable packages of the widest range of human experience, presented in a format which gives time to grasp complex ideas or to spend time in imaginative worlds. Children who "get" the reading thing have the best possible platform for "getting" the trick of school learning, as well as a resource for the rest of their lives.

"This makes the current situation, with "reading" compulsory, but reading books optional, discriminatory. If schools don't make books important then children who come from homes with no books, and who don't visit libraries, will never find their way into this vital way of presenting ideas, feelings and knowledge."

For him, one of the most exciting things about the project was seeing "teachers enjoy the freedom of being able to transform children's lives".

I wonder what Malaysian teachers would do given a similar chance.