Books Transforms Lives (2)

Between the lines: reading aloud with children can transform their lives

Annie Holife@scmp.com

If I were to ask you how important is it for a student to read well, you would say it was very important. But people seem less convinced when it comes to the importance of parent-child read-aloud. I suspect that reading aloud is viewed as a leisure activity on par with taking one's children to musical shows or going on a family nature walk.

It wasn't until I started working with Bring Me A Book that I learned that, the lower the socioeconomic class of the child, the bigger the impact of reading aloud.

Parent-child read-aloud will certainly enhance a middle-class child's development; but for underprivileged families, this activity transforms lives.

There have been many studies into how linguistic patterns used in middle-class homes differ from those used in low-income homes. One study found that parents in low-income homes used imperative statements, while those in middle-class homes used discrete interrogative questions.

Middle-class families use the same language patterns as schools, so their children develop the skills needed to learn the way that schools teach.

More than one study has reinforced the finding that children of professional parents hear 30 million more words by age three than children from low-income households.

Language patterns and vocabulary are connected to reading comprehension, so low-income children face increased challenges once they enter school and start learning to read.

When low-income parents spend a few minutes each day reading aloud to their children, they provide opportunities for vocabulary-building, questions and discussions.

English parish priest Jay MacLeod conducted detailed research on how poverty is perpetuated. Ain't No Making It chronicles his relationships with a dozen young men from the same public housing development that spanned 25 years.

One of his conclusions is that character and behaviour are greater determinants of success than academic achievement, for the simple reason that it takes a lot more than IQ to stay away from drugs and crime in that kind of neighbourhood.

Paul Tough's How Children Succeed is a more appealing read on a similar train of thought. Tough criticised early childhood education's emphasis on cognitive skills (reading, writing, arithmetic) as he pointed to extensive findings that children with good non-cognitive skills (self-motivation, self-control, self-awareness) were the ones who fared better in adult life.

One study that Tough shared in his book found a high correlation between childhood stress and trauma on the one hand, and depression and anxiety disorders in later years.

Another study showed the importance of parental attachment: parents who were responsive produced securely attached children, and such attachment created psychological effects that last into adulthood.

A third study concluded that any lasting impact of childhood stress and trauma can be erased by strong parental attachment.

When low-income parents spend a few minutes each day reading aloud to their children, they will be providing opportunities for cuddling and dissolving stress.

The philosophy behind parent-child read-aloud is about so much more than just books. It is about connecting families and communities. It is about how parents can help their children succeed in life in ways that are much more effective than making sure they get good grades.

All of this scientific research is humanised in Wes Moore's The Other Wes Moore.

The author is an exemplary contributor to society who discovered another Wes Moore languishing in prison. Both came from the same poor black neighbourhood, were the same age, and grew up in single-parent families.

He contacted the other Wes Moore and examined how their similar pasts led them down different paths.

The author believed it was his mother's attachment parenting that helped develop his character and keep him from a life of crime.

When it comes to school readiness, kindergartens need to focus less on drilling cognitive skills and more on developing non-cognitive skills.

Until kindergarten curricula are reformed to reflect this, parents need to be aware of how small changes in their daily home life can transform their children's future.

Annie Ho is board chairwoman of Bring Me a Book Hong Kong, a non-profit organisation dedicated to improving children's literacy by reading aloud to them bringmeabook.org.hk

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as When reading aloud transforms lives

Books Transform Lives (1)

Between the lines: reading together helps families bond and grow

Annie Holife@scmp.com

I regularly venture into parts of Hong Kong I would never see were it not for my work with Bring Me a Book. I visit kindergartens, primary schools and community centres.

When I see the sweet and earnest faces of the children, I can't help but wonder about their future. How many of them will break out of their economic class and stop the poverty that often gets passed from generation to generation?

Many parents in these communities can barely make ends meet, yet they will spend what little they have on after-school tutorial classes for their children. They do so in the misguided belief that more tutorials lead directly to better school grades and, ultimately, success in life.

The after-school classes to which I refer are not the fun-filled and stimulating activities that middle-class children enjoy. Tutorials in these communities often involve paying HK$50 for a child to sit silently for one hour, among rows of students, watching an instructor with a wireless microphone expounding academic theories.

This learning environment is hardly helpful for a child who is already struggling at school. Most parents want their children to read well, yet many are sceptical about their ability to help their children develop a lifelong love of books. Some parents don't believe they are educated enough or have sufficient language skills. Others blindly follow the masses; if the whole neighbourhood has signed up for English flashcard classes, they feel compelled to do the same.

I tell parents in these communities to save their money and take their kids to the public library instead. Through our read-aloud training workshops, they come to understand the tangible and intangible benefits of parent-child read-aloud sessions.

And after they put what they've learned into practice, they become true believers that something so simple as reading stories together can have a big impact on their family life and their children's development.

Middle-class families tend to spend quality time together and live in homes containing at least half a dozen books. This is not the case in lower-class families.

One parent told me that, before she started reading with her son, their interaction usually involved berating him about school homework and household chores. This parent went from a long day of work to an evening of cooking, cleaning and childcare. Her eight-year-old son rarely spoke to her, preferring to spend his time playing video games in his room.

Our training workshops comprise two classes one week apart. At the end of the first class, we give parents two books to take home, and ask them to read aloud to their children every night for one week.

By the time the parent with the eight year-old son returned for the second class, she was a devotee of reading aloud.

She revealed that her son was at first reluctant to sit down and listen to his mother read a picture book. When they finally sat down and read the story together, she suddenly realised that she hadn't cuddled with her son, not in months, but years.

By the end of the week, mother and son were having meaningful conversations, including her son sharing that a friend was being bullied at school.

She began to see her son in a new light, as the labels of irresponsible, ill-mannered and unresponsive melted away, and his sense of humour and endearing perspective on life came to the foreground.

By the end of the second class, she knew that their lives had been transformed.

This parent was aware that this transformation would improve the relationship, but what she had yet to learn was what had happened would lead directly to her son's improved cognitive and non-cognitive ability.

In the next column we will find out how. 

Annie Ho is board chairwoman of Bring Me a Book Hong Kong, a non-profit organisation dedicated to improving children's literacy by reading aloud to them bringmeabook.org.hk

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as Reading together, staying together

"The Good The Bad and The Vocab"

Between the lines: children's books that celebrate the power of language

Tuesday, 08 October, 2013, 10:40am

Annie Holife@scmp.com

My daughter loves to play with older children, and I enjoy spending an afternoon with families with older offspring, as it gives me a glimpse of what may be in store.

When my daughter was three years old, I witnessed my friend's five-year-old son doing something he wasn't supposed to. Rather than berate the boy, my friend calmly suggested that he think about the consequences of his action. And he stopped misbehaving.

I was greatly impressed with this feat of superior parenting. My friend advised that children can be conditioned to take, or refrain from, certain actions once they have suffered consequences.

Of course, the key is to carry through with the threatened consequences, or to allow the natural consequence to flow.

For example, if a child is jumping around while eating his ice cream cone, don't warn him that the melting dessert may fall onto the ground and then take it away to hold it for him.

If you warn him about the consequence, you must allow him to experience it (unsafe consequences excepted) for the lesson to be learned.

For weeks after that play date, I started to teach my daughter about actions and consequences. One day, she asked for a cookie without saying "please". I said, "What's the magic word?" to which she hesitantly replied, "Consequences?"

I realised that, while she had learned this new word, she was too young to grasp its meaning.

Since then, I have patiently waited for my daughter to be old enough to understand "consequences", as her daily life continued to be filled with instances of good and bad consequences. Now that she is five years old, we enjoy books about vocabulary, which explore concepts like "consequences".

Jamie Lee Curtis, the Hollywood actress, celebrates the power of language in her eighth children's picture book, Big Words for Little People. This picture book uses rhyming verses and humorous illustrations to introduce words such as consequence, privacy and inconsiderate.

Of the word persevere, Curtis writes: "To persevere is to try and to try, even though you might want to give up and cry. When doing a puzzle that puzzles your mind, you persevere until the right piece you find."

This word is accompanied by an illustration of children trying to put together a giant 60,000-piece puzzle.

Another of our favourite books is Amy Krouse Rosenthal's Cookies: Bite-Size Life Lessons. Children learn about what it means to have respect, be modest, feel compassionate, and a range of other feelings and concepts, all in the context of baking, eating and sharing cookies.

With beautiful drawings by acclaimed illustrator Jane Dyer, this book helps define grown-up concepts in language that children can understand.

For trustworthy, Rosenthal writes: "Trustworthy means, if you ask me to hold your cookie until you come back, when you come back, I will still be holding your cookie."

This book was so well-received that Rosenthal followed up with new words in the same cookie context in a whole series of books about going to school, love and Christmas.

For primary school children, Lee Bennett Hopkins' Wonderful Words: Poems about Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening is a poetry collection sure to inspire young wordsmiths.

Hopkins is a distinguished poet and anthologist, and this book includes poems by Emily Dickinson and Carl Sandburg. With poems titled Metaphor,Words Free as Confetti and How to Learn to Say a Long, Hard Word, language is celebrated as something that greatly influences our lives, externally and internally.


Annie Ho is board chairwoman of Bring Me a Book Hong Kong, a non-profit organisation dedicated to improving children's literacy by reading aloud to them bringmeabook.org.hk

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as The good, the bad and the vocab