"He's eleven and he can't read

yet."

If a parent said that to me I would be very concerned. Yesterday it was said to me by a grandparent. 

I had an invitation to "coffee" with the former owner of our local indie bookshop. It is a lovely shop and much of its ongoing success is due to this woman. She has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the bookselling business and, in particular, of books for children. Although she "retired" from the shop and sold the business many years ago she still does some work for another business. She is in and out of schools all the time and she is only too well aware of what teachers are looking for in books.

I was aware of it too although, perhaps because I see so many children in the library, I had not felt her level of concern. The children I see are readers. Most of them are there to borrow books. Their parents and grandparents think reading is important. It is to be encouraged. What J.... was talking about was something different. 

I called in at the shopping centre on my way home and saw someone else I knew. "You're late today," she told me. I told her where I had been and why and thus came the comment about her grandson. I know the boy but I also know what she means. He is not a "reader". 

He will play computer games if given a chance but the idea of reading a book does not appeal to him at all. He is one of those who needs "interesting topics, simple language and larger print". It is all he is prepared to try...and he is not alone in this.

J... tells me that teachers are looking for such books. The books need to look much more sophisticated than picture books for the first few years of school. At the same time they need to be in language that these reluctant readers can handle. "Middle Grade" topics but very junior language? 

I was reading everything I could at age eleven. Brother Cat was much the same. Our parents used the "Children's Library" in the city as a sort of child minding service I suppose. We would come back to the city for the school holidays and there would be a library day for me and my brother while our parents did whatever else needed to be done in the city centre itself. The librarians did not seem to mind but that may have been because we would head for the shelves and then the wonderful window nooks where we could read and read and read.  We knew how to find the books we wanted to read too. Other children must have come in and out but we seemed to stay for hours. On one glorious occasion we took our lunch with us. It was solemnly handed over to the librarian at the desk and we went to read until she told us it was time to go outside and eat it. We were very careful about washing our hands when we had eaten!

There might be children who would still do that but I suspect even some "keen readers" are happy to leave the library after a short time. We left reluctantly.  

I wonder now how many children are not reading at night the way we did. I know, from multiple sources, that the number of parents reading to children is not as high as it once was. There have always been some who have never read to their children. Some cannot read themselves. There are others who simply do not see it as important. Now though there seem to be parents who say they "do not have time". They apparently cannot find time to do it. Some even struggle to find time for the child who is learning to read to read to them. I know families where the grandparents and the older children are those who hear the younger children do their "reading homework". If your parents are not interested in your reading why should you be interested? You need feedback. You need encouragement. You need to be told it is important.

I wonder how I would get on if I had to go back into school and teach a class of reluctant readers? How would I manage as a school librarian if the children did not want to read? Would a lot of books for those reluctant readers even help?