As a group of wide-eyed kids watch in awe, Jugneeta Sudan widens her eyes, pauses and subtly changes her tone into a quiver and a tremble. She has just introduced an element of fear in this exciting reading session that is on at a popular bookstore in Vizag. Jugneeta deftly moves from one emotion of storytelling to another, and her young enthralled fans listen aptly. Based in Vizag, Jugneeta is an academician, an educationist and a self-confessed bookworm. She conducts storytelling workshops across the city and shares a few interesting tips with MetroMela on how to get your kids to begin reading at an early age and on how to sustain that reading habit for life. Read on.
Why does a child need to read?
Reading opens a whole new world to children, a world that has receded into oblivion due an increasingly consumer-driven and techno-savvy lifestyle. Reading helps to open their minds to distant horizons and to perceptions that are not limited by boundaries and pressures. Reading also helps to blend reality with fantasy as it allows their imagination to run free. By reading, children also get to live many lives and experiences through memoirs, biographies, travelogues to exotic locations, etc.
How do parents’instill’ the reading habit in kids?
Kids are born artists, vibrant and fresh. They become what they are exposed to. It is, therefore, imperative that we introduce books to them when they are still a few months old! Read out stories from big, colorful storybooks that are filled with large pictures. A child’s world is all about color and imagination, of rides with Santa Claus, floating clouds, elves and fairies. So create these in the child’s room by writing image-driven fairy tales on the wall. You can also read aloud to the child from charts, boards, etc. Do not put your child in front of the television and kill his imagination. Instead, fill his world with books, words, nature, art, watercolors and clay, and music too.
Which books to begin with?
Begin with words of a rhyme and then move on fairy tales and Indian folk tales like the Panchatantra, Jataka tales and Aesop’s fables. Introduce Arabian Nights and Noddy and then illustrated classics like Black Beauty and Peter Pan. Bring in short stories from Ruskin Bond, Roald Dahl and Rudyard Kipling(the all-time favorite Jungle Book). The time is set for Enid Blyton, Malory Towers, Tom Sawyer, Tin Tin and Swami & friends. High school kids can now move on to Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Sherlock Holmes, Harry Potter and then to Christopher Paolini, Charles Dickens, Shakespearean plays, and more of inspirational biographies and memoirs.
How to make reading interactive?
Activities combined with book reading enhance reading skills. They act as appetizers. So the involvement of parents, teachers and friends(like at a Readers Club) must be encouraged. Introduce kids to word games like Scrabble and Pictionary. Brainstorm and create crosswords and quizzes on books reads. Get children to create their own storybook. Attempt pictorial representations. For instance, get your child to critically study Robert Frost’s Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening, and then ask the child to landscape it. Kids can then graduate to either scriptwriting of a story outline or write a poem based on an experience. Have book reading sessions that eventually generate reading communities.
Reading habits for youngsters and for older kids
Smaller ones float in a world of fantasy, magic and wonder. The story and plot hooks them. This can be further dramatized through role-play exercises and pantomimes. On the other hand, the older kids can be led beyond the plot and characters by bringing forth the nuances of the language in active and ongoing discussions. Ensure this – an avid reader must have a dictionary, a rhyming dictionary, a thesaurus and an atlas.
The role of teachers
Their occupation calls for them to be exposed to a plethora of books and authors of classics, poems, biographies, newspapers, journals and even self-improvement books. Especially recommended are Frank McCourt’s The Teacher, ER Braithwaite’s To Sir with Love and Steven Covey’s The Leader in Me.
Reading can be constructive, instructive and inspirational. It can open a new world of words and experiences. MetroMela hopes that Jugneeta’s reading tips help to do just that. Happy reading!