Change She WroteFor the love of books [Archives:2004/733/Culture]
By Sadaf Shah
[email protected]
For the Yeamen Times
Dear parents, the importance of learning must be emphasized time and again for the sake of our children's future. Please do not believe the false notion that it is the teacher's job at school to foster learning. No. It starts at home. Teachers help students build skills, but a parent's crucial role is to nurture a love of books and words. How do we do that? By reading to our children at bedtime especially, but even throughout the whole day. Making reading a part of your child's life will make him crave books, as he gets older. Foster an environment of reading by being an avid reader yourself. Children emulate behavior, and by showing your children how you love to read will help them to appreciate books as well. There is a huge difference between knowing how to read and being an avid reader. We have to turn our children into adults who will consistently turn to reading as a source of pleasure. But how do we do that?
Some important points to remember:
There are some rules to remember when promoting an environment of reading. First of all, read aloud starting from birth. This is really important since listening comprehension comes before reading comprehension. The more words a child hears, the bigger his vocabulary will be. And this will help when the child starts to read by himself. Second of all, parents, instead of wasting time and money on 'qat', buy lots of books and have them available all around the house. 'Qat' will not nurture a love of books. Stocking your house with books will send a strong message to your children that you value reading. Be a reader yourself! Make a habit of reading a book or the newspaper while your child is in the room. Please do not watch T.V, as a child who sees his parent watching T.V most of the time will emulate that behavior. More than ten hours of T.V a week leads to underachievement in school according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Forget the cartoons/movies; show your child that reading is more important to you by reading yourself. And let your children also be in charge of what they read. If they have an interest in airplanes for example, let them buy books/magazines that cater to their interest. Yes, even magazines count as a good source of reading material. To sum up:
“I know no animal product that despite its youth, the short time that elapsed since its birth, its modest price and its ready availability brings together so much excellent advice, so much rare knowledge, so many works by great minds and keen brains, so many lofty thoughts and sound doctrines, so much wise experience or so much information about bygone ages, distant lands, everyday sayings and demolished empires, as a book “
The above passage is taken from a translated version of a prolific Iraqi writer by the common name of Al-Jahiz. Happy reading everyone!
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