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As featured in Parentdish

Sunday 22 April 2012

Boring books


I’ve written before about how my son’s reading came on loads from reading about football. I don’t think it matters what children read as long as they enjoy reading. 

Recently a University of Warwick professor of literacy education has been looking at the subject from the point of view of university lecturers proving reading material for undergrads. Speaking at a literacy event in Stirling recently, Professor David Wray spoke about US research which found that high school text schools had become dumbed down over the past few years.

In his opinion students accustomed to reading complex texts were better prepared for university. He suggested that an overemphasis on early reading skills was causing problems later on, saying that often the enjoyment of reading was being put second. Wray also said that schools who were better at teaching literacy were the ones who gave children more freedom over what they read.

Tuesday 21 February 2012

The 25 words all two year olds should know


I read in the papers this week that there are twenty five words every two year old should be able to say. If they can’t say these words, there is a problem. Well I am proud to say that my two year old (three in May) does not regularly use all of these words. 

One of the words (or rather phrases) is ‘all gone’. I know most parents repeat this to their child about fifty times a day. I don’t. I guess that means that there is also something wrong with me.

I have a couple of friends whose children don’t drink juice. I must remember to tell them that something is wrong with their children as I doubt their children were shouting out ‘juice’ at the age of two.

My son can speak in very clear sentences when he wants to – No, let’s go this way, That’s Hayden’s car, so really I am not worried. And he can say much more complicated words than these. I am just worried about the constant interference in how we bring up our children. Luckily for my children my husband and I tend to ignore them.