Family Literacy Day

Yesterday I called my grandson and daughter on the internet to visit for a while. My grandson is just turning five

and he is a bundle of excited energy. It is a little baffling how to get him to sit still for longer than 30 seconds on the internet video phone. One thing that works is to ask him if he got any new books from the library. Going to the library has always been an important event in our family household and it has transferred to my daughter’s household now.

This was not exactly the case when I grew up in Regina during the 1950’s. My parents read to me children’s books I received as presents, but did not take me to a library. It didn’t help that the Library was a bus ride downtown at that time. A new feature was the Library book trailer which came to our neighborhood in the 1960’s. I was in school by then and loved the library at school. It was an easy sell to convince my mom to let me walk with neighbor friends to the book trailer a couple of blocks from home. I remember the first visit to it and the delight in being able to take two books home for the week.

My love for reading came naturally, but this is not always the case in families. It seems to be especially a

challenge for parents with boys as they prefer action events to reflective events. The key is engaging the imagination. My sister in law has four boys and she struggled for many years to interest them in reading. The series called “Goosebumps” was her break through. It captured the imagination of her sons and opened the door to new worlds of experience.

When I was a graduate student in psychology, I reviewed many research articles about how to best prepare your child for success in life. The number one thing was having fun playing

together and the number two thing was closely related – engaging their imagination by reading. If you have a child you are well aware that at a certain stage they make allot of babbling noises. They are experimenting with sounds that form all the languages on earth. By listening and engaging the adults and other children around them, the baby learns which sounds are the most common and valuable for language, Making words is a built in passion for them during the next stage and playing with words is something that brings those delightful baby giggles. This is the best time to begin singing to them, telling nursery rhymes and short stories.

With my own children, going to the library down the street was a common

occurrence during the week by the time they were one year old. It was a great outing for all and had many different activities to offer them. But the best was taking home new story books to read throughout the day, and especially before bed. As a parent, taking five minutes to sit together reading a book was a special time for snuggles, laughter, talking and playing. Many times it was the best distraction when feelings were hurt or the world was out of sorts because of needing a nap or recovering from one.

So last evening when my grandson was a blur on the video phone, I asked him if he had any new books. He charged off to his room and returned with a story about a monkey with a utility belt. Together with his mom we read the story and it was a highlight of our brief video phone visit. The only thing better would have been having him on my knee and reading it in person.

#familyliteracyday #january27th