Dr
Neil Béchervaise
NB
Consulting (Australasia) Pty Ltd
Reading and Seeing
House Notes - Random House
© Neil Béchervaise
When Greg Rogers, illustrator of Libby Gleeson's Way Home and
Gary Crew's Lucy's Beach and a number of other delighful books,
said that he didn't enjoy reading, I looked at him again. A leading
Australian Book Illustrator who doesn't enjoy reading?? And then I
saw his spectacles and I wondered when he first started wearing them.
And how the need to see the print is critical to early reading.
Few people argue that children can really read words when they
are first read aloud to. But they do learn to associate elements
of reading with what they hear. They learn the sound of a story,
the look of a book. The difference in sound between a newspaper
story read aloud to them and a storybook story. They learn to identify
their favourite stories from the cover. They learn to point to parts
of the picture identified in words.
What is often overlooked is that children learn to associate the
story with the printed words rather than the pictures by having
the words shown to them. And they can only learn to read the words
if they can see them. Children with congenital sight defects are
at risk as readers because they cannot easily identify and differentiate
the words on the page as the source of the story - presuming that
they are directed from the pictures to the words.
A common consequence of this inability to see the words seems
to be a preference for pictorial presentation. Not necessarily moving
pictures, not necessarily television but pictures rather than words.
Students brought up in homes where reading is affirmed often irritate
and bewilder the adults of their family with their preference away
from reading. An understanding of the possible source provides us
with opportunities to expand the reading options of the child by
recourse to large print and by acceptance of the fact that we don't
need to read everything.
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