BookBrunch

The Quick Read Learners' Favourite, Patience Thomson's 101 Ways To Get Your Child to Read (Barrington Stoke £1.99 – BookBrunch story), is an inspiring guide. Michael Morpurgo's introduction recalls the pleasure of being read to by his mother, "who loved to read me stories and poems. And that's the point. She loved doing it. I could tell by the way she read it. She was enjoying the story as much as I was." Morpurgo goes on: "If you read because you love it, then the child will catch that love like a falling star and put it in his pocket for life."

Thomson, in the rest of the book, does a great deal to help those parents who do not love to read themselves, often because they find it difficult. Or because they are too busy. Her sensible advice - from her experience not only as co-founder of Barrington Stoke, but as the former head of a school for children with SpLD, and as someone who has taught adult learners from prisoners to university students - debunks myths, sweeps away anxieties, and offers practical, step-by-step suggestions.

Thomson's wisdom includes the following:
•    Information about identifiable problems, from hearing difficulties to ADHD.
•    The valuable advice that it doesn't matter if you read late - because you have to learn to read only once.
•    Rejecting the culture of blame - a non-reader is no one’s fault, not the teacher's nor the parent's, and particularly not the child's.
•    The truth that dull reading graders may help you to identify words but they don't make you care about story.
•    That the right book matters.
•    That it is important to model reading.
•    That it is ok to read material other than books: magazines and newspapers count.
•    That audio books are invaluable for introducing children to language and story.

This book is one not just for anxious parents to read, but for anyone involved in advising parents, for librarians, booksellers and especially teachers.

Morpurgo also says in his introduction that at school, "the stories I had loved were simply used by teachers to test my spelling and punctuation and understanding. This turned me off, and for years my love of stories and poems lay sleeping." But for him, it was teaching that reminded him that the "only way to get them all involved and focused" was a good story.

Politicians, and those involved in education policy, should read this book too.

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