Hello!

Hi, I’m Lisa and I’m a screen addict…and so are my kids! Most of us would be perfect candidates for SAA (screen addicts anonymous).

How many minutes can you go before picking up your phone? One minute? 10 seconds? For me, after about 5 minutes not looking at my phone, I start getting a bit edgy. My kids are young but they’re already tech-experts – navigating through ABC Kids and the Playschool app like pros.

Concerning

With an increased number of hours spent on a screen, it’s no wonder that our kids’ reading is suffering. Australia has dismal literacy rates, ranking number 21 globally according to Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PISA) literacy results. That means about one in five Aussie children are not meeting international benchmarks for reading.

You can’t deny that those stats are really worrying, especially since literacy is a key component of all academic success. I have this sprouting fear that my children won’t be adequately prepared for what lies ahead, if I don’t make some changes now.

Now is the Time!

The good news is that it’s not too late. If you’ve got kids under 5, then now is the time to turn off the screen and turn the pages of a book instead. I’m not saying I’ll be throwing my phones and iPads out the window. But it does mean, I’ll be spending more quality time boosting my kids’ literacy levels and ultimately changing their lives for the better.

I had a fascinating chat with David Chiem, the Founder, CEO and Executive Chairman of MindChamps International, an innovative early learning and Pre-school network.

David is passionate about improving education and literacy standards. He shares research which shows that learning habits and attitudes that are formed in the early years have a key influence on future success. MindChamps believes that the answer to elevating our literacy rates is to nurture an enthusiastic ‘learning mindset’ in every child, during those critical early years. This is best done through the world of books.

You Don’t Have to Be an Expert

The great thing is that you don’t have to be a teacher or an expert in neuroscience or early-childhood studies, to instil a love of reading into your child.

In the early years, children learn best within an environment conducive to play and a child will forge a life-long enjoyment of reading as long as they are having fun while doing it.

In order to get your child passionate about reading, MindChamps has shared a few key tips that all parents can try.

1) Read WITH Your Child

Read with your child (not to your child) for at least 30 minutes every day. It’s tempting to just read the words of a book to your child but experts suggest that the true value of reading lies in reading with your child in a way that encourages them to put themselves in the story. This brings the story to life and becomes a fun, vibrant experiences for your child.  Bedtime is an ideal time to read, as it relaxes kids into sleep, but don’t feel you have to limit yourself to just one time of the day.

2) Make Books Part of Your Life Together

Try and make books an integral pattern in the fabric of your lives together, so that story-time becomes fun time for your child. Make the story a ‘shared event’ – a positive emotional and tactile experience, in which spoken and printed words are inextricably involved. The child who enthusiastically runs to the bookshelf and brings back a favourite book to share is a committed reader long before they can ‘decode’ the words on the page.

3) It Doesn’t Only Have to Be Books

Don’t limit yourself to just reading books. Words – spoken, recited, sung, whispered – are important in developing your child’s competence in, and love of, language. A child who has regularly experienced face-to-face conversation, expressive story-telling (or story-reading) and the rhythm and rhyme of recited poetry – who has sat with a parent and shared the feel and the visual excitement of a hundred (or a thousand) books, and asked and answered questions about the characters who live in them – that child will inevitably grow to become a reader.

4) Words Are All Around Us

Find the words which exist everywhere in everyday life – on signs, in songs, at the bus-stop or the supermarket, on shopfronts and billboards. Share the language of pictures – ask questions about them or point out interesting features. Assign descriptive names to unknown things – or people.

5) Be Present

Make sure that when you and your kids are together, you are truly present. Try and resist looking at your phone and focus your attention on your child. People managed to exist for thousands of years without being permanently ‘on-line’, so neither you, nor your child, are required to have an umbilical connection to the screen. You should enjoy quality analogue time with the most important ‘friend’ you have.

MindChamps PreSchools offer a programme which nurtures the love of reading and instils pre-literacy skills within our little ones, without boring drill and rote-learning, in the years before they arrive in school.

The team at Mouths of Mums is working with MindChamps Early Learning and PreSchool Centres to bring you this article. After decades of research into early learning pedagogy, neuroscience and child psychology, and drawing upon the engagement techniques of theatre, MindChamps has crafted a new approach to early learning that is designed to equip the children of today with the foundations for future success.

Image of MindChamps Early Learning Logo

What are your favourite books to read with your child? Tell us in the comments below.

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  • All kids are different. Out of my 3 I have two that are avid readers and the eldest refused to read a book. In high school she would get audio books for assignments.

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  • Books are a more personal experience to lose yourself in the story, and a good connection for children and adults.

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  • Always read books to my children and made sure they read books at school and for pleasure. Thankfully they are still readers as am I. Just love the new books that are on the market at present.

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  • Just having books available at home makes a big difference too.

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  • I’ve been reading books to my kids since birth, as the get older they love reading to me, even when they don’t know how to read yet! Its all about being patient and finding the time.

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  • My children absolutely adore books, what a great article.

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  • I love reading myself so naturally I read with my 4 year old and 3 month old daily. We take activities from the little big book club website to go along with the books we are reading to reiterate the messages or topics in the books and to have extra fun!

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  • I love reading books myself, but my children not so much

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  • For me Reading with all my kids from the moment I found out I was pregnant with them. I LOVE reading and believe reading to our kids from birth is a blessing to both yourself and your child will benefit greater when they start kinder or school much easier having been reading or read to vs Children whom read for the first time only at school. Reading time is great wind down time and it can help with bonding and also speech of young toddlers. I’m a true advocate for reading and teaching our children proper English and how to respect books and literature and also write well. I’m old fashioned when it comes to technology. Give me a Book and pen and paper anyway over a keyboard and screen.

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  • My boys loved lots of different books but I do remember reading Dr Seuss books and there was on call something like Look at me Grandma which we read all the time. Unfortunately despite this neither of my boys are readers now.

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  • Hungry caterpillar and the cat in the hat
    My daughter loves reading my son just tolerates it

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  • Some good tips !
    My 6yr old loves an Usborn book “Peep inside the Farm”

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  • I hope my son loves reading as much as I do

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  • My son LOVES books and my daughter is becoming the same. From a young age my husband and I always read to my son and he enjoys it so much. Now with my daughter we all have story time and as soon as we mention it’s time for books she is pointing to the book and getting in her comfy spot. We also took them to story time at the library from babies and they have loved that as well.

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  • Very hungry caterpillar still on the top list.

    Reply

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