THE EDITOR, Sir:
AS A librarian and a teacher of the English Language I find that our youngsters have, in this technological age, become altogether reluctant in the pursuit of entertainment or even knowledge in the form of a good book. Videos and video games have replaced the teenage novel; the Internet has replaced magazines and comics we enjoyed in days of old, and e-mails have replaced the letters we used to write to friends. I am still trying to convince my teenage son that if he continues using 'u r' for 'you're' in his e-mails to me he'll soon perfect the habit and be helpless to reverse it.
There is an urgent need for reading to be brought back into schools. A 'need to read' campaign is an idea whose time has come. If given the right level and appropriate motivation it is likely that our children will once again value the worlds of wonders that books and reading have to offer. Research suggests that young children should be read to every day but we need not stop there. In my experience, even a cynical grade 11 class will listen spellbound when read to as long as the material is interesting and at their developmental level.
Parents must introduce books to their children at an early age as this will enable them to grasp the variances in phonics which will inevitably affect their language and cognitive abilities. Teachers in schools need to institute reading competitions and expand the ones that exist to an inter-school level. The Ministry of Education must make it mandatory for a cadre of reading specialists to be incorporated into every school's staff from primary to secondary level.
All these strategies put in place can only augur well for our nation's children and there is no doubt that there would be a marked improvement in the CXC results in the areas of English Language and literature. At this point, let me make a special appeal to those reading specialists still left in our education system. If in your quest to make children literate you engender the love of reading in one, strive for another one, it can be done.
When was the last time YOU read a book?
I am, etc.,
YVONNE STEWART
stew99peas@yahoo.com
Library Media Specialist
