The Superpower that Might Matter Most Richard Glover SMH 12th July

Wow, two weekends in a row the Sydney Morning Herald has something to say about Australia's falling literacy rates and the drop in numbers of people reading to their children. As a grandparent, Richard has worked out how to entertain children, read to them and make it a memorable experience so they want the experience repeated. Richard Glover in the Sydney Morning Herald today (12th July 2025 Subscriber link)

A few weeks ago I wrote about Aidan Chamber's contribution to children's literature and reading teaching and his reading cycle has an important component called the 'enabling adult'. Yes, an adult has to convince children that this is fun and worthwhile. Reading aloud to children is the subtle way to do it, much better than a flashcard drill or a program on a computer. 

Richard's grandchildren are indeed lucky to have someone who wants to read to them, enjoys reading to them, knows what to read to them and better even still, does voices for the characters. Not everyone is good at voices, but everyone can 'cuddle up and share a book' ie. read and talk about it, what you like, don't like, which character would you most like to be etc.  Richard asks 'Who doesn't like reading books to kids?' It would appear that many adults either haven't had this pleasure or are choosing to forgo it.

Two days ago I attended a local Lifeline Book Fair with two other teacher librarians... heaven for us and so many others who were there early in the morning. There were people with bags full of books so books are not 'dead'. I watched the people in the children's section. There was a young mother collecting every Peppa Pig and Maisy title she could find. I am so pleased she is obviously reading to someone, but I did want to ask her some questions. Why collect Maisy, but leave other Lucy Cousins' books in the box? Was it because she had seen these on television? I wanted to offer suggestions that would  expand her reading choices. There were several Jill Murphy and Martin Waddell books in the box that she skipped over, and which would have been great choices. Who doesn't love Five Minutes' Peace and Peace at Last  by Jill Murphy or Can't You Sleep Little Bear? and Owl Babies  by Martin Waddell?

There were families where the mother and kids were looking for a particular author or series of books and the Book Fair is very good for this. They group the books to make it much easier for all and it keeps it tidier. If one book in a series is lost from the school library, I look for a replacement at the Book Fair.

What else do I buy? Mainly I buy books for my friends and sisters who are grandmothers who like to read with their grandchildren. They have a box of books at their homes for when the children visit and they say I always give them great books that hold the children's attention. That is because I have book knowledge, well honed over years of study, teaching and being a teacher librarian. I believe reading to children is of paramount importance so I see spending money at a book fair as being one way to ensure children get to have books in their hands and an enabling adult to share them.

Long ago, I taught  trainee primary school teachers at university and teachers in schools about literacy and how to teach reading and writing. I always started a lecture or a session by reading a children's book to them. It was a way of making sure they knew about that chosen book. It worries me that undergraduate teachers have so little time in their course to read books for themselves that a knowledgable mentor has recommended. 

Reading with children is precious time, time that you will not get back! Someone gave me a fridge magnet when my children were small that in essence said something to the effect that your children will only be children for a short time, but the dust and housework will always be there, so make the most of your time with them and worry less about what you didn't get to do. Yes, you may be asked to read the same book over and over because it is a favourite, but you have to clean over and over too and it is not a favourite. Perhaps teachers need to think like this too, before they give up their class serial or picture- book-a-day routine, because if students are not being read to at home than we need to look for ways to make sure they are read to, catch the 'reading bug' and go on to be readers who not only can read, but choose to read and then pass that superpower onto their children and grandchildren as Richard Glover is doing.

As time-poor adults we have to make choices, we have to prioritise what we think is important and we have to advertise how pleasurable reading aloud is by doing it well and often. Visit the library. The school I teach at lends books to parents and grandparents,  but if your school doesn't visit the local council library. They will steer you in the right direction. There are so many parent reference books to help with this also. They have recommended reading lists!

• Raising Readers by Megan Daley 

• Reading Magic  by Mem Fox

• 7 Steps to Get Your Child Reading  by Louise Park

5th June Aidan Chambers (27.12.34 to 11.5.25) Reading for Pleasure

Readers are made by readers - it is so obvious it is almost banal to say it.

Aidan Chambers

Recently I read about the death of Aidan Chambers, an author/educator who had a very profound affect on me as a teacher. When I was a young, inexperienced, but very passionate teacher who was very involved in the Primary English Teachers' Association I went to a workshop run by Aidan Chambers in Sydney. He outlined his Tell Me Framework  using examples to show how each of his questions might work. The next day, back at school I tried it out with my Year 5 class using Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. After the basic questions, I asked How long did it take for the story to happen? Well, I have never had a more vigorous discussion with students. It was a mixed ability class including five non-reading boys.   There was a group of students who were convinced that it took a year and a day times two at least because that's how long it took Max to sail to the place where the wild things were. There was a group who thought it was only minutes because Max's dinner was still hot when he got home. One student said minutes because that is how long it took me to read the book. Then quietly, one of the non-reading boys said I think it was a month, because if you look at the moon pictures in the book it goes through the phases. He had studied the illustrations very closely. Then we had to go back and revisit the story to debate all these views. In the end we spent over an hour on this. I know that is a luxury in today's curriculum-heavy classrooms, but it did two things.

1. Converted me to the power of Book Talk, and 

2. Taught me to never underestimate my students' opinions.

I was already 'into' Children's Literature because I had done it as a subject at university during my Undergraduate English degree, but as I undertook a Master's of Children's Literature I had Aidan Chambers in the back of my mind informing my thinking and classroom practice. After a  stint teaching teachers where I read to them every session, I went back to a school as a teacher librarian.

Every session in the library with students convinces me of the importance of the reading environment, the importance of unknown texts chosen by a well-informed adult and the importance of giving students time to talk about books.

This brings me to why I believe schools need teacher librarians who read widely and who are very aware of authors, illustrators, translators, Children's Literature and Reading for Pleasure advocates. There should be a difference between a school library and the local library. At school I often have to remind some of the staff of this fact ...I am a teacher first and a librarian second.

Aidan Chambers said this eloquently in his talk Making Readers

For their part, children expect their teachers to know more than they do, and to know how to help them get to know more for themselves. They expect librarians to know about books and to know which books it might be worthwhile reading now, today. They expect the adults who are responsible for them to know how to help them go where they cannot go on their own. Children know what they want to read for themselves. They tell each other about those books. It hardly needs a paid professional adult to help them do that. What they want from professional adults is guidance about reading they would not have thought of, do not hear about from each other. 

I think I am very good at doing this, but I butt heads with parents who think their child should only read and borrow what they like to read. They can do this at the public library. At school I expect that they will borrow 'a free choice book' which might be 'pulp' fiction, a graphic novel, a book from a loved series, a book a friend recommends, but I also expect them to take risks, try new genres, read nonfiction, biographies, poetry... and my book talks and book displays enable them to do this.

I am not adverse to children being taught phonics as a means to learning to read, but phonics is not reading. Reading is a lifelong experience. You get better at it, not by learning rules, but by reading everyday and doing it because you enjoy it. Phonics doesn't make a reader. It aids reading, but as teachers we want our students to love reading and schools need to reproduce the warmth, diversity and engagement that we see in families that read together. If we create this we will have students who read for pleasure from a wide variety of books and do so because it is pleasurable.