Referring to the article published last week entitled ?Awakening a taste for reading?, I agree that reading can become a pleasurable activity in the same way as watching a hit movie at a theatre. But one first has to move to the theatre to watch the movie. Reading wise, it means bringing in the books and reading them to children. Who will bring the books and read to them? It?s the same people who take the children to the cinema or to the seaside: their parents.

Almost all children spend the most pleasurable moments of their life with their parents. So they have an important role to play in making reading become one of those pleasurable moments in a child?s life. Reading for pleasure should start very early. One should not wait for the child to begin school. As soon as children start understanding their small world, parents should read a short story to them at bed time.

The importance of such an exercise is that it inculcates a good habit in children. Once parents get started, they will see that, if they forget to read to their child one night, the latter will ask them for his story. That is a good sign as it means that the child is finding these stories pleasurable. You will also notice that the child will ask you to read some stories several times. Parents may feel bored but they should respect their children?s wishes.

 The essence of reading for pleasure is the story and not the vocabulary and grammar items (as professed by Pennac) that build the story. Parents and teachers should not bring in formality and pedagogy when children are reading for pleasure. Telling a child to use a dictionary or copy words and expressions from the stories he is reading may inhibit his love for reading. These exercises are done in class to test their understanding, so better leave that part to the teachers. 

One must be clear about the objectives of reading for pleasure. Word and language study should stay in the background. It does not mean that they are not important, but while reading for fun, the language should only be seen as a vehicle or agent that opens the reader?s imagination. We may think that children won?t learn the language if they do not understand what they are reading but this is not the case. The vocabulary and grammar items get stored informally in the child?s mind as he goes on reading. That will help when the child starts creative writing at primary school.

Most primary school teachers have to spoon feed Standard V and VI pupils to get them to write compositions. Very often we end up with 40 bright pupils writing almost the same thing and others at times using expressions which don?t fit in the story. The culprit for such a situation is a serious lack of reading. A pupil who is an avid reader will write compositions where ideas flow smoothly, with expressions fitting in accordingly as he has a pool of ideas and expressions he got while reading for fun. The more children read the better their creative writing will be, with fewer clichés and unwarranted expressions.

To sum up, I would say that:

■ Parents should make it a must to read a story to their child everyday as from 1 to 2 years old until they become independent readers. It will only take them between fifteen and thirty minutes per day.

■ Reading for pleasure should be limited to the entertaining aspect with no formal pedagogical tasks attached to it. In the long run, the pedagogical gain will follow suit for sure.

■ Choose books that will suit the language maturity level reached by the child.

Sarvam