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Previous
An Anti-Reading Culture
by Gurveen Kaur, Educare
Gurveen Kaur is with Centre for Learning, Hyderabad. CFL brings out a journal called Edu-Care to discuss issues connected to education. This is a quarterly magazine in English. Edu-care takes up a specific theme in each issue related to education such as ‘play’, ‘competition’ and ‘culture’ and analyses them to great depths. The articles are from CFL members as well as from readers. Discussion threads on topics from previous issues are also published. To subscribe, please contact CFL at Plot.No14, S.P.Colony, Trimulgherry, Secunderabad 500015, Phone: (040) 2799 0529.
People in general can be divided into two categories: those who love and value books and those who don’t. In the twenty plus years that I have been teaching I see an increase in those who don’t love and value books. This is all the more worrying as it coincides with a manifold increase in schools, tutorials and an increase in the number of ‘educated’ parents.
Can this lack of interest in book-reading be blamed on the growth of the audio-visual media? We seem to have accepted that this is the primary reason. The impact of the audio-visual media is powerful, so it is natural that children gravitate towards it. The question is “Is it desirable for television viewing to replace reading?”
When television viewing began to overtake reading as a pastime in the countries where the television first originated there was serious discussion of the gains and losses. We inherited the television but there was no serious or sustained discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the medium. Some of us who were concerned and agitated read about these debates and settled the issue for ourselves while the others never thought about it and did what others did and let television prevail. In fact since most of this group consisted of nonreaders, television was a new dimension to their lives. The very few in between who picked up the uneasiness about television as a medium and were worried or undecided were very quickly won over by the argument “it’s okay to watch educational channels”. In fact if we ask people what is lost if television replaces reading, most can give no specific reasons beyond undesirable content for children.
The other question that we need to ask ourselves is whether that is the only reason for the decline in reading. When reading was popular there was a different understanding of what was worthwhile.People recognised certain pursuits as intrinsically valuable and encouraged children to engage in them without looking for immediate benefits. The present philosophy is very different. We recognize the value of only those activities which have direct, definite and immediate pay-off. So activities like reading, painting, sketching, and music lose their value – unless of course, the child demonstrates an exceptional talent which promises to “lead them somewhere”. In the same spirit, children are encouraged to study but not read! Earlier when a school-going child did not learn to read, parents got seriously worried. Now if a child becomes a reader, that is, a lover of books, the parents get worried. “S/he is all the time wasting time reading books - why doesn’t s/he study instead?”
Increasingly one comes across parents who tell a child “don’t waste your time on reading (story books), if you must read – study your texts.” Even parallel texts are discouraged below class eight – after class eight you ‘read’ parallel texts to get that edge over others in the exam. Parents who thus discourage general reading, outside the syllabus, not only inhibit reading but also kill interest in learning or promote only reading for the limited purpose of passing an exam – an attitude that remains throughout one’s life. They do not seem to realize that reading is an essential central skill that permeates most schoolwork or tasks and is absolutely essential for academic success. Perhaps this confusion is a result of the fact that in Indian languages the same word is used for ‘reading’ and ‘studying/ learning’ – in Hindi ‘padhna’ and in Telugu ‘chaduvu’?
Even within the boundaries of scholastics – which most people equate with ‘education’ – it is proficiency in reading that provides the ‘edge’. From helping the child break free of an indifferent teacher or schooling to enabling the child access parallel texts, it is reading alone that makes it possible. It is not only the study of Social Studies and Science that is limited by lack of language skills but also Mathematics. Children who cannot read or comprehend independently or those who are not in the habit of reading carefully cannot solve word problems in Mathematics. If one is interested in educating their child and not merely getting them a degree or passing an exam, then teaching reading and inculcating a love for reading is a must. It is the one-point minimum programme that ensures education as opposed to mere schooling or obtaining a diploma/ degree.
Not only do most parents consider general reading a distraction from studies, they don’t want to spend on buying books while they think nothing of buying expensive snacks, gizmos, branded shoes and clothes for children who will outgrow them even before they’ve lost their shine Besides, most children rarely see their parents read and if they do read it is the newspaper or magazine, not a book. Sometimes they are reading only for their next degree or diploma – that is, functional or instrumental reading. Clearly they do not understand the importance of reading and therefore devalue it. This creates an anti-reading culture/ ambience. Matters do not improve when the child goes to school.
Schools, even the so-called ‘good’ schools don’t have time to teach reading – how can they in a class of forty or more students. Texts are read out in class and if the child picks up reading, the child survives in the school system. Those children who are wholly dependent upon the school seldom learn reading. Those who suffer most from this lack of space-time-resources and teaching of reading are the deprived children. Those of us who are concerned with the high dropout rates must seriously consider this. Teaching reading is the one effective antidote to an indifferent teacher.
The other reason that concerned teachers cite as the reason for not being able to concentrate upon teaching reading is the curriculum overload. However, it is the assessment or testing mania that creates the curriculum overload. Most of the teachers’ time is spent in giving answers that can be learnt for tests and correcting reproduced answers. Teachers mark out answers in texts – “Answer number one is from line so-and-so to line-so and so…”. This makes it unnecessary for the child to read the chapter and impossible to discover whether the child comprehends and whether s/he can find answers on her own. So it is now possible to ‘study’, or memorize, without reading or understanding.
When some teacher, despite all odds, does try to give importance to teaching reading the parents get impatient. Most parents don’t understand all that is involved in teaching reading, and become quickly impatient at the time it takes and at the lack of overt signs of progress.
Reading is a complex skill involving attention, perception, and linguistic and cognitive skills. It is a movement from sight or sound to the meaning of the word and then sentences and then the text. It is not naturally acquired but needs to be learnt. It means teaching the child to stay and attend; it requires perception of shapes, linguistic skills (a vocabulary in the language) and cognitive skills for comprehending the text. It goes from deciphering words to comprehending sentences, then constructing what the text is about and using the information to go beyond what is merely implicit in the text. Even apparently simple texts require readers to import knowledge from the outside world to make sense of the text. Children need to be taught all this, as they need to be taught how illustrations aid understanding. Teaching all this takes time and patience and commitment.
It is also essential to understand that reading is not just about knowing it or not, there are different levels of proficiency. It is one thing to understand a simple text and quite another to understand another text with an extensive vocabulary, sometimes specialized or culture-specific vocabulary, complex sentence structures and plot or story. Then there are different kinds of reading required for different types or genres of writing. Different books need to be read differently – for information, for pleasure, imaginatively or critically.
In terms of understanding the content of texts, very young children find it difficult to distinguish between ‘very important’ and ‘less important’ or plot and sub-plot. Teachers need to teach children to distinguish between plot and sub-plot in a story. This could be picked up on one’s own if one did enough reading but for those who do not or cannot, this needs to be taught. Teachers don’t help when they present all the subject matter in a chapter at the same level. While teaching Science they don’t distinguish between the central concept in a chapter and its illustrations or the experiments that support the central point. Pointing this out would not just make learning easier but help a child to see how texts are constructed and information needs to be ordered. It would also help them organize their reading more efficiently – they would know which parts of a text to spend more time analyzing and which parts to “take” as additional or amplifying information.
It would certainly help and strengthen teachers if they were taught about the importance of reading and how to teach reading. During their professional training, teachers are rarely taught about the importance of reading or how to teach reading. It is assumed that they understand the importance of reading. Unfortunately most of our teachers today come to teaching never ever having experienced the joy of learning or reading and hardly ever for intrinsic reasons. I was absolutely shocked when talking to a group of language teacher trainees at an elite institution, I discovered that a majority had never read outside the syllabus and were not book lovers. They had never enjoyed reading and did not really value it! Those who have never ‘read’ anything but a (sub-standard) textbook in their student life and never tasted the delights of reading, how can they recognize the importance of reading! Teacher-training courses not only need to teach about the importance of reading and how to teach reading but build in opportunities for teachers to discover the joys of reading.
Again, teaching how to teach reading should not become a battle of schools of thought about which is the best method to teach reading.
There is much confusion and disagreement about the best method to teach reading. Some take the phonic route, others the direct route or whole word perception and yet others believe in taking the lexical route. Whole word perception helps gain confidence initially but phonics is essential at some point or the person is handicapped when they come to unfamiliar words. Phonics provides the tools of dealing with unfamiliar words and spellings. Some prefer the lexical method – i.e., meaning straightaway attached to the written word – as it builds and sustains interest. Yet different children have learnt by different methods and become good readers. I really don’t think it matters which method one uses – the point is the child should learn reading without too much difficulty and enjoy it. It is clear, however, that some children learn to read quite easily and others do not. Why is this so?
Being convinced that you can’t read is humiliating; believing that you cannot possibly learn to read is a traumatic nightmare. Many children drop out, or leave school, feeling defeated or stupid. They develop a reading phobia and this only makes matters worse. What can easily be corrected becomes complicated. They fear reading and panic sets in every time they come face to face with a text, and this leads them to make more mistakes. This demoralizes them even further, till words blur and they cannot proceed. This is very painful to watch. This cannot be corrected without a loving, positive relationship, a lot of trust and an attitude that is convincing and encouraging without being overbearing or condescending, certainly not an attitude of patient endurance or suffering. It takes a lot of commitment and patience to reconnect and begin to teach the child.
It seems to be a vicious circle – non-readers pass on their attitude based on their own limited proficiency and inability to connect meaningfully to reading to their children or students while readers pass on their love of books and proficiency. Both the parents’ and teachers’ attitude to reading often lies in their own limited proficiency and inability to engage meaningfully with reading. This is exacerbated by their ignorance and lack of understanding of the processes and what goes into teaching reading. After all, it is one’s own experience of learning—either of being taught or through individual experience – that shapes one’s own teaching practice.
Reading is a source of information, a source of pleasure, a way into new worlds, a means to extend and deepen understanding and empathy. Reading is education because it frees one from any one point of view – parents or teachers. It can free one from conditioning as well as give one the freedom to choose what one wants to discover or explore at one’s own pace. Reading can introduce one to very different points of view and information, This ensures width as opposed to narrowness. The process, of integrating what is read into one’s framework of earlier reading and experiences requires thinking and hence creates a space for depth of engagement. To a seasoned reader this is so obvious that one does not think it needs to be pointed out, just as what was “elementary, my dear Watson,”—”elementary” to Sherlock Holmes was usually not obvious to others.
END NOTE: Readers are welcome to share ideas on how to get children to read for pleasure and for work — efficiently and with engagement.
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