The fire of literacy is created by the emotional sparks between a child, a book and the adult reading. It isn’t achieved by the book alone, nor by the child alone, nor by the adult who’s reading aloud – it’s the relationship winding between all three, bringing them together in easy harmony. (Fox, 2001, p. 10)
This is a quote I found in the Province of New Brunswick's Exploring Literacies Handbook (2018), and I love it. When I looked up the reference, I found it was from Mem Fox's book Reading Magic: Why Reading Aloud to Our Children will Change their Lives Forever - next up on Cheryl’s reading-for-fun list.
Reading about reading for fun? Why not? I love reading about reading, and I’ve done a lot of it. Jim Trelease’s Read Aloud Handbook, Paul Kropp’s How to Make Your Child a Reader for Life and more recently Denny Taylor's Learning to Read and the Spin Doctors of Science are just a few of my favourite reads about reading. But I had not yet read Mem’s book, and there it was on my shelf.
Mem’s writing for grown-ups is both witty and blunt. She’s also an author of children’s books - I love Tough Boris - and herself a mom. She tells us she brings all three to her work on literacy in words that really resonated with me: “I speak with the authority of an international literacy consultant and the intensity of a writer, but I am most passionate when I speak as an ordinary mother. I hadn’t realized that reading aloud regularly would mean [my daughter] would learn to read without being taught" (p. 4).
I loved being a significant part of my children becoming readers, and I read aloud to them before bedtime for as long as they would let me, enjoying what Mem calls (p.20) the "private language that develops in families through shared book experience." I will never forget making and wearing family T-Shirts that said "Hobey-Ho!," something the young protagonist of Pendragon would say prior to another adventure. (Pendragon by D.J. MacHale is a 10 book YA series I've read aloud twice.) Reading aloud to my own children gifted me the pleasure of that time spent with them, as well as allowing me to experience and re-experience wonderful children’s literature.
Mem also co-verified the relationship and literacy development that happens as well as when we read and talk about everyday things with our children. Anyone remember reading the Sear’s Wish Book (Christmas catalogue) as or with a child? Referencing Dr. Sue Hill of the University of South Australia, Mem reminds us (p.19) that things like food or product packaging, postcards and flyers, signs and instructional guides all offer chances for engaging, authentic reading for and with our children in our daily worlds. "We don’t need drills and skills, or horrible workbooks, or expensive programs," she later writes (p.52). "We should not suddenly become teachers of our children. We must be ourselves. Entertainment is the teacher. Subtlety is the key."
For me, oddly enough, reading about reading is also authentic reading - something I do out of genuine interest and desire, and yet also for my own enjoyment. Thanks, Mem, for another fun read on reading.
Cheryl Brown is co-creator of the Storytent and Bookwagon programs, QLNB's Community Literacy Coordinator, and long-time advocate for and facilitator of a variety of family literacy initiatives.
