The Power of Books: Observations on Early Education

Reading is an essential skill, but we should not under estimate the power and learning possibilities of being read to. Pushing a child to read too soon may fail if the child does not understand the magic and power of books.

Books fulfill so many needs, a means of entertainment, education, or escape. A book can transport you to another world or it can reflect and explain our own world. Books are powerful, they can convey ideas, explore beliefs or enforce rules, they can influence or instruct. Most important of all they become treasured possessions.

As a young child I loved to be read to, my parents read to me every day and they took me to the library to choose new books every week, but I liked to stick to my old favourites and I took the same books home over and over again. Best of all were the Bobby Brewster books, about a young boy who had unusual adventures. My parents must have dreaded yet another evening with Bobby Brewster, but they read the stories with enthusiasm and I loved that warm feeling of cuddling up next to them with a favourite book. Every week my father bought me a couple comics, I loved the pictures and the characters became familiar friends, my favourites were Harold Hare and Katie Country Mouse.

Image via Wikipedia

In those far off days when the government was too busy dealing with other matters to meddle with education, my school nurtured a love of books that has remained with me ever since. When I first started school at the age of four I wasn’t too keen on learning to read. We had little red check gingham bags which hung on the backs of our chairs to hold our reading books. The reading books were deeply uninspiring, they were about Dick and Dora, their friends May and Jesse and their dog Gyp. I suspect those books came out of the ark because as a child growing up in the 1960’s I didn’t know anyone called Dick or Dora and certainly not May or Jesse, I didn’t identify with them and I couldn’t care less about what the words meant because it was so boring. We had better reading books later on, I think those were called Wide Range Readers, finally there was something worth reading and suddenly I could read.

The formal process of learning to read was supported by less formal enjoyment of books. School lunch was a very formal affair with all sorts of rules to be observed, but afterwards we had a period known as ‘rest’. It was one of my favourite parts of the school day; we all went to the school hall and rested on rugs while stories were read to us. I was introduced to The Borrowers, Milly Molly Mandy, Dr Doolittle, Sam Pig, 101 Dalmatians, The Country Child, The Moomins, My Naughty Little Sister and my dear old friend Paddington Bear. I loved them all and I can remember them very clearly so many years later.