‘Bathe children in language’

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33774, 21 February 1975, Page 13

‘Bathe children in language’

{New Zealand Press Association —Copyright)

LONDON, February 20

The best way to prepare the very young child for reading is to hold him in your lap and read aloud to him stories he likes, over and over again.

This is the key advice given today by 20 leading British educationists in a literacy report compiled after nearly three years of investigating teaching in 1807 British schools.

“The printed page, the physical comfort and security, the reassuring voice, the fascination of the story —- all these combine in the child’s mind to identify books as something which hold great pleasure,” the report says.

Its message seems to be that the cuddle is almost as important as the story. The Government sponsored report, “A Language for Life” also encourages parents to [talk often with their children. so that they may learn ito be articulate, and it highi lights the advice given by a health visitor to expectant ■mothers: “When you give [your child a bath, bathe him I in language.” As important as talking: and readings to children is

listening to what they say, the report says. It cites one nursery schoolteacher who found some toddlers so inarticulate that they answered the question. “What’s your name?” by replying, “Shut up, Samantha” — which was all the child heard at home. “Too much television can be harmful, but the medium does extend a child’s vocabulary, and the better programmes should be watched,” the reports advises.

The investigating committee, composed mainly of teachers, lecturers and professors, was headed by Sir Alan Bullock, until recently Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University. It was established to check reports that reading standards in schools were ■declining as the result of new methods of teaching reading and writing.

The committee said that I there was no convincing evidence of this, but deteriorating standards among working- | class children in deprived areas was noticeable.