Reading – The Secret Portal To Knowledge And Skills

The Three Little Pigs, Red Riding Hood, Peter Pan… we all recognise these titles as some of our childhood favourites that our parents read to us before we drifted into dreamland, expanding our imagination and dreaming about what it be like to fly and being friends with canny little characters.

School libraries today and even the public library looks like deserted towns haunted by the aftermath of a nuclear bomb – in this case that will be technology and various apps. It is a well-known fact that children’s reading ability is shrinking rapidly due to YouTube, apps and various games. The youngsters of today would of course strongly disagree that technology is frying their brain and argue that the technological advances is merely blowing their minds!

According to a study conducted by Nielsen Book data, it has been discovered that 32% of children read books every day and 60% maybe dig in to a book every week. The second most popular activity after watching TV which is at 36%, is watching videos on YouTube, followed by social media and playing games and messing around on apps.

On the flipside, certain professionals might argue that technology improves a child’s ability to learn and that they can explore the world more thoroughly through the world wide web. As a former teacher, I can partly agree with this statement, but only because my learners could easily fix a problem when my AV cable couldn’t connect to my Smart Board or tell me which torrents are best to use for downloads…

It is understandable that parents of younger children don’t have a bookcase filled with all the old classics that are being read one by one before bedtime. Times have changed, but parenting shouldn’t… Kindles are a big thing and you see hundreds of individuals losing themselves on the Gautrain in the mornings, whether they are reading a steamy novel or the latest saga on the cabinet reshuffle to indulge in their Ramaphoria.

Why not bring back some old-school traditions and read to your little ones straight from you kindle? You can download everything the heart desires. We are all tired after work and it is much easier just plonking the kids down in front of the TV and putting on a Paw Patrol marathon, but think about it this way – when your child reaches the age of 13 or needs to embark on their journey as a young adult into the world, you would at least want them to SPELL Paw Patrol correctly and not use WhatsApp language and broken sentences when submitting their CV’s.

“I are a very dependibel indivigil and I work heart.” – True story what I have seen on a CV with my own two eyes that have read a lot of books and stories! Children need to be stimulated and given the opportunity to explore all the wonderful fantasy worlds that we drifted into when we were children and that can only be accomplished by reading, telling stories and investing time.

A word of encouragement – if you don’t feel energised and ready to be a storyteller of note before bed each evening, just think about our beloved country… Help raise the future leaders equipped with a foundation that can be built upon. Literacy begins at home, make it count!