Anika’s pick of the week 10

I want to talk about reading.  It is an important skill that is important to teach and the importance of learning to do so.  Now I HAVE heard of reluctant readers in school becoming great readers and vice versa.

Now I will admit Johnathan read from a young age.  In fact, in his last year at nursery/kindergarten the woman who led the Book Garden had him read to the little ones .  She would gather a group of children around him.  And he continued doing so when he went to school.  I remember the deputy head rang me to say he had walked past the classroom and saw Johnathan reading to a number of children.

And when I was little (I forgot this in a previous post), I had a number of books as a child and mostly they were nursery rhymes. So when I started reading other kinds of children’s books, you may not have noticed (and I hadn’t either), most early children’s books ARE set in a rhyme and rhythm so children can learn more easily because the rhythm helps the reader to carry on and the rhyme helps because they can guess the next words, so these books are very popular.

When you think about it, most songs start as poems and then the music is written for them.  I was surprised to hear on the TV that this was the case with the writer of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” because that was the only way she could publish it.

I hadn’t realised there were so many books with a great rhyme and rhythm, that could capture the attention of the child and I read many a happy hour when I looked after children, reading to them.  And me saying I hadn’t read or enjoyed much poetry, not realising the rhyme and rhythm.

TREASURE

We tend to forget this, maybe because they happened so early in our lives and just around us in songs and children’s books.  And we think we have a problem with poems!  No, we don’t actually.  We haven’t given ourselves the opportunity to read them!  Wow, that is such a good place to arrive at.  Anyone wanting to join me on this mountain?