Early Reading is the Key to Success

I love to read books, since I was a child I always loved to read and even now, books excite me. I wanted to pass this love on to my daughter when she was born and R.I.K. bookstores has helped me to accomplish this. Their bookstore in Chaguanas is my favourite outlet and I buy most of my books there. I love to pop in and browse their books and the staff is most helpful and friendly.  They stock books for every age group and of every interest. My daughter especially loves the bite sized sofa they have for her to sit and read books whilst I browse the store. For my second daughter who is now one and a half, I bought her hand puppet books that she absolutely loves. They are so creative and fun and allow for imaginative play as well as have helped her to like her books. She has her own mini library now and will go and pick out her own books for me to read to her.

 

As parents, all we have to do is make the books available to them and their curiosity will do the rest. Of course she patterns after her older sibling whom is constantly reading and playing with her own books. If you expose your kids to books from babies, you will see how different your child is from other kids as they grow and blossom. Not only are they smarter, but their minds think differently and they are more aware of everything. They can speak better as they are exposed to a bigger vocabulary and they will even start spelling faster. My daughter also loves Maths and other areas of work and does not need to be forced to do her school work. Apart from reading books, I do love to buy craft books and activity books which my daughter just loves. R.I.K has a wide variety of these and they are cheaper than other bookstores. Their stores are stocked with the most fun books for kids that will make them so excited that they will want to finish the book in one day.

 

You also need to be aware of the fact that when your child has this thirst for learning and needs to be challenged, that a normal kindergarten just will not suffice. You child will become bored and will not want to go to school since he is doing more work at home. A school that will give the child individual attention instead of classroom attention will be better and will help mould his mind and brain. Our children are capable of so much more than we think, then why keep them back? Why is it that kindergartens are instructed to only do a certain level of work? This concept I do not support and I will never succept my child to this.  Kids must always be encouraged to do their best and if they do not like colouring, like my child never has, then they shouldn’t be made to do it. My daughter thinks that colouring is boring but instead loves to write and her teacher complained that she wouldn’t colour. Well, because she needed to do a higher level of work. Needless to say, after sending her to another school where her individuality was promoted, she covered so much more work and read so many books and she was always excited to go to school. Every morning, as I drove her to school, she would read her day’s lessons for me and I barely had to help her. She loves reading for me and is excited when she realises that she can read so well.

I believe that if parents can cultivate this love for reading in their kids from a tender age that our kids would spend more time reading and at our nation’s libraries than in gangs, and the less likely they are to get into trouble. I must applaud our governments for providing our kids with well stocked libraries and the best facilities; however, it is entirely up to parents to help their kids love reading. You cannot expect to take a primary school child to the library and he will just love to read, you need to start the process from baby and watch it flourish at primary school. That is the right way! Only when parents can adopt this way of thinking can they better the lives of their kids and the country by extension.

Parents need to step up and take responsibility for their kids and their actions. They need to teach by example. A child is the product of his environment. All we need to do is provide the child with a good environment, one in which education and love is prominent and we will have more confident and smarter kids. Why do some parents expect teachers to be solely responsible for their kid’s success or failure in exams? Education should be a team effort and if this is done from kindergarten, then your child’s success is certain.  A few simple changes can change our nation’s kids and make our country the paradise it used to be, however, parents need to change their attitudes first. Our kids need to be more important to us, we need to spend more time with them and educate them from babies. We need to break the cycle, send our kids to school if we want a better life for them. Invest in their future and stop being selfish! Our kids are not our slaves and should be given every opportunity in life. Education now is free to all and no excuse should be accepted since Trinidad is small and we have several schools in every area. If your kid has to walk to school, hold his hand and walk with him, be a parent! All your child needs is an opportunity to go to school and this will change his life forever.