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Photo: K. Ananthan

Read right Children’s imagination can be kindled by introducing them to the right kind of books

Everybody is talking about lack of communication skills in young graduates, which is why so many don’t make the grade in interviews and placements. Slap dash and last ditch efforts to train them in ‘soft skills’ rarely succeed. It is an effort that has to start much earlier, at the primary level. And, the responsibility lies squarely on teachers and parents to encourage ‘reading’ as much as they possibly can.

Reading is a way of tapping into the child’s creative and emotional intelligence. It is like organic farming — unsullied, untainted, pure and natural. That is why Nalini Shanmugham, teacher, secretary, and resource head of Vivekalaya Matriculation School describes it as ‘Organic Reading’

She says: “We make the child own his words,” and explains how. “I asked the children to think of a food word they associated with playing. Some said it made them think of sweets, a plum, an ice cream. One child said ‘pop corn’ and said she ‘popped’ up when she played!” Then, Nalini wrote down the words they have used. “The children quickly learn to read what they have said.”

A lot of talking and praise goes into making a reader, she says. At her behest, six-year-old, Sambhavi Rajkumar reads without a falter, a letter Abraham Lincoln wrote to his son’s teacher! In this school, the librarian is not just “any free teacher”, but one who fosters book-love in her young wards.

A chart in the library directs students to pick a book, read it and record their observations thus: name of the book, author, opening line, and finally, why they liked or disliked it. Each class spends an hour every week at the library. The nicest thing is that it is not all military precision, glossy books and the antiseptic look. Well-thumbed books lie in untidy piles.

Sadly, there are schools where the library period is either snapped up by a teacher with an overburdened syllabus, or where it is turned into a revision period.

Reading is considered a waste of time. Only because “of the time and syllabi crunch,” says Padma, who teaches English at Kendriya Vidyalaya. She is one of the hundreds who are constantly racing against time to ‘finish’ the portions.

Yet, Padma finds the time to make her students do newspaper reports, projects that involve reading matter other than textbooks, and encourages them to read aloud in class and recommends books to them. With 40-plus students in each class, she says she can only hope that at least a few will get into the reading habit.

In the race for marks, reading skills are the last thing parents or teachers worry about. Often, reading in chorus is undertaken when the teacher is correcting a mountain of notebooks. She pays scant attention to the pronunciation or diction. This is common in many schools. Even the one Roald Dahl went to. He describes his school days as an absolute nightmare, till Mrs. O’Connor walked into his class and changed his life forever.

She would read to the boys, talk to them, tell them stories. She triggered their imagination, and that is why we have the delightful “The BFG”, “James and the Giant Peach”, and other Dahl delights.

There are hordes of kids out there waiting for their imagination to be kindled. Are you their Mrs. O’Connor?

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