Cultivate reading habit of your child through strategy

Mou Chakraborty
Kolkata, May 28, 2007
MEET DAKSHINA Chatterjee. Like any other seven-year-old she is happy watching Cartoon Network on TV and playing games with her friends. But her mother wants to cultivate reading habit in her daughter. So she bought her adventure storybooks and comics. The books were full of glossy pictures and cut outs. Dakshina picked up the books but did not go beyond looking at the pictures. Her love for the idiot box did not wane.
This is a common problem. Even at school, teachers keep telling about the benefits of reading habit but those good words fall flat on most students.
But coordinator of the English Language Centre at Brigham Young University Neil Anderson says the battle can be won easily. During his trip to Kolkata last week, Anderson addressed over 80 teachers from across Bengal on how to cultivate reading habit among students across all age groups.
“Well if you find a child interested in cartoons and buy him storybooks and comics the chances are he will opt to watch the same on TV since it is more attractive. But what about gifting him a book on how ‘Tom & Jerry’ was made? The child will not only like it but will also want to read more on the topic,” Anderson said.
The trick to begin with lies in identifying the hobbies, likes and dislikes of the child and give them a book which helps them to know more about their interest areas.
Another way of helping your child pick up that novel prescribed in the syllabus and actually read through it is playing the predication game. “After reading some chapters if the children are asked to guess what will happen next they will find it very exiting to play the guessing game. The teachers will not only understand how much the child has actually studied but the child will get interested in reading the next few chapters and knowing whether his prediction was correct or not,” said Anderson.
For the grown-ups, teachers and parents may discuss an alternate ending to a novel or a story or ask questions like which characters in the book can be your best friend and why? And yes, do not do too much testing. “Most of the times the students get drifted away from reading their prescribed books because they know that at the end their will be a test. So the best will be that the students are kept away from testing and instead the teacher discusses the character, background and other relevant things in the class,” Anderson said.
And if the teachers find their students really bored with the reading they can try another trick. “If the teachers ask the students to draw the picture of what they understood from reading certain portion of the book the students will give positive response. They will not only have good time drawing pictures but the teacher will also understand how much a student has understood and liked reading the book,” said Anderson.
Language is a gift for a child and books give this gift in abundance. Reading a book aloud can be a good exercise not just for memorisation but also for improvement of speech and vocabulary.
“For little children the parents can read aloud a novel every night and then on few occasions asks the child to read aloud while the whole family listens. In that way the child will consider it a game or a every day practice and will pick up reading habit,” Anderson said. “For the students who love mathematics or love to do things in short cut the teacher can explain the plot of a book through Venn diagram,” he added.
mou.hindustantimes@yahoo.com