By Dickson Tumuramye
There is a common saying that if you want to hide anything from an African, put it in writing. This shows how are not so good at reading for the majority of people especially if the text is long. This is probably because we don’t have a reading culture and taking a lot of time reading something can look like a waste of time.
From the way we are raised and trained, reading is usually reserved for school to pass examinations. We therefore start to read when we get to school and our focus is on reading to achieve the best marks after an examination. Another option for reading is mostly to learn how to read the Bible or Quran so that in case one is asked to take a reading, he can ably read well.
But we don’t find much interest in helping our children to learn reading either before school or outside the mindset of school and examinations. Yet reading helps our children to develop language skills, gain a deeper understanding, become critical thinkers, know how to solve personal challenges, develop a habit of planning for their time and intellectual development among others.
Start reading storybooks for your children when they are still young. Rather than keeping them on television and other electronic gadgets all the time, create some time daily amidst your busy schedule and read a page or two or a short story for your child. If you don’t have storybooks, the Bible has so many stories from various characters that can inspire your child. Every chapter in the Bible is a good story to tell.
Draw a timetable for your toddlers and be available. If one of the parents is busy, then another one should take it on. If both of you can’t make it, train your child’s caretaker to instill this noble habit in them. Before long, children will learn how to read on their own. When a child starts to understand on their own, buy picture storybooks for them to read and interpret on their own. Young children are more visual than audio and pictures attract their attention.
If they are grown-ups, start identifying certain books, magazines, stories, and personalities they like or their areas of interest and buy them such materials. Take them to a store and ask them to identify the best reading materials that interest them. Sometimes we also don’t know what to read or what we exactly need until we get on a shelf and start looking at different authors, their biographies, and the book titles. That is how you get attached to a certain book or magazine.
Put up a small library at home for everyone to always get time and have reading material. Every time you land on a nice book, buy and stock it in your home library. There are also places with libraries. Take your children there to read and borrow books. Expose them to different reading materials and libraries. We now have free online libraries with good content depending on what you like. Your children can utilize them.
Reading takes commitment and consistency but when it becomes part of you, then you don’t ever waste time. We are seeing a trend of addictions to gadgets in this digital era. Partly it’s because our children have no alternatives to spending their free time. They now look at electronic gadgets as the best source of solace in catching up with trends and things. But reading can cause a lot of learning than being on social media watching unfiltered content which may be harmful to your child.
With the new curriculum in place that is more child-focused and competency-based, our children will become better researchers, readers, and self-centered if we focus our attention on helping them read on their own. We now need to shift our mindset from looking at reading as majorly for academics and valued so much for passing examinations.
We also need to look at other major soft skills our children acquire as they read on their own. I already mentioned some above. Imagine a child who has read about various successful business people or great inventors, politicians, and footballers, if such literature is in their line of interest, how ambitious will your child be? How much can they dream about? What life inspirations can they gain? What would their future look like?
Do you realize that even the selection of what our children are looking forward to studying in high schools or universities may not be a big problem in making a career choice? They already have a clue about what happens and how to achieve that. It’s therefore not too late for any of your children to develop the art of reading on their own. Start the journey by interesting them by reading literature of their interest and choice. Then issues of decision-making about future careers may not be a big deal. Our children are going to appreciate this new curriculum and find the research-based reading part of it. It will definitely improve their performance in various life aspects.
The writer is the Executive Director of Hope Regeneration Africa, parenting coach, marriage counselor, and founder – Men of Purpose mentorship program.