Not so long ago, a Belarusian portal asked to answer a couple of questions for a national article about reading to children and reading to children. As a result, none of my comments were included in the article. I still wonder why.
Do the citizens of Minsk have a culture of reading from birth?
First of all, we need to understand what we mean. Do today's parents read to their children from birth? Some read. Can we call it an established culture of reading? Partly. Reading to very young children is another way of communicating with them. And it is good for giving adults the freedom to read anything, as long as and when you want, as long as all the participants enjoy the process.
At the same time, experts are increasingly talking about the rules and rituals associated with early reading. Professional advice is emerging, advice on selecting books is being widely disseminated, and on ways to keep the attention of distracted children in check. Educators and psychologists explain the benefits of early initiation to book culture. But this process is still in its infancy.
Not all adults are yet familiar with the abundance in the book market for the youngest. Not everybody knows what to do with a wide range of books for first reading. I mean books that are suitable for babies by age and level of speech development, rather than thick editions with catchy covers, with the easy hand of publishing marketers entitled "The first book of the baby" or "The most complete textbook preschooler.
I would say that now we have much more comfortable conditions for reading parents, but they are still used by few.
According to the experience of working with babies, can we say that Belarusian parents have started reading more to their children than four years ago?
In recent years, they have become much more active in talking about the benefits of reading. The general place can be called the thesis "If you want your children to read, read to them aloud and read to yourself. The idea that the volume of books read and the love of reading are directly related to the level of intellect is firmly rooted in the mass consciousness. Parents want their children to love books, and they are willing to spend time and energy on early development. The intersection of these two interests has led to the fact that in recent years, in Minsk, readers have become popular for the youngest.
Do you have experience of working with younger students. 3-4 grade? Are they really less interested in reading than 1-2 grades?
If we talk about Belarusian schoolchildren, then grades 3-4 is more like a time of growing interest in reading. By the third grade, the majority of children finally feel confident readers, reading is fluent, well automated, children easily answer questions on the content. This is a time when both teachers and parents make every effort to maintain interest in reading.
At home, parents do not expect a child to sit for hours with a thick novel in their hands and approve of light, entertaining books. And in school, reading is not yet a tool for learning everything from history to computer science, and it continues to be valuable in itself.
Even school subjects are not yet called Russian and Belarusian literature, but literary reading. In the center - work to improve reading skills. Transition to secondary school is a painful breakthrough, when children's competence as readers must withstand serious tests.
Is it a smartphone or a culture of upbringing that is to blame? Or lack of education about class books?
It is very easy to blame a smartphone for all the troubles. But first of all, let's not forget where it comes from and why. Secondly, we will look what year at us behind a window and we will think, whether precisely without the smart phone there will be one variant - the book?
Options to have fun without resorting to literature, a lot, and yet there is that not discouraging percentage of adults and children who read books. Moreover, the children's and teenage book market segments show steady growth worldwide over the past decades. The e-book market is ceasing to grow and children's books are thriving. In neighboring Russia, the largest fair of intellectual literature non/fiction is called a fair of children's literature behind the scenes, simply because all life on the children's floor, which is cracked at the seams by the influx of visitors.
What would you advise parents of babies and those who want to interest children in reading?
There is only one recommendation - to read aloud to children in childhood and let them see that parents also read for fun. One thing is enough.
Another thing is that, as a rule, people living in a book culture, do not blindly meet the standards (20 minutes of reading a day is enough for a child to benefit from the introduction to the world of literature). Such people gather rich and interesting home libraries, follow book news, attend readers' events, discuss favorite or disappointing editions, attend fairs and festivals, support children's aspiration to play favorite characters, put on amateur home plays on books, etc.