Dads drop in with kids to read them a story
Even though his 21/2-year-old daughter can’t read yet, Denis Ryan fosters a love of books in her by reading to her and taking her to the neighbourhood centre to take part in literacy programs.
“Books are just so valuable, even enjoying comic books, like I did,” said Ryan, a stay-at-home dad of Ada (with another one on the way).
“It’s making sure they have an engagement with books. It’s not so much about her learning the letters or numbers. I’m more interested in her picking up a book and flipping through it.”
Ryan on most Saturday mornings takes Ada to the Dad and Me drop-in, where fathers can get a hot meal and interact with other dads while their children play or listen to stories.
“We can sit around and gossip while the kids play,” he said.
Dad and Me, which starts up again Saturday after the summer break, is one of the many bookc entred programs offered by the Family Marpole Centre, said the centre’s executive director Tracy Beshara.
Marpole, which has a high concentration of rental and co-operative housing, has a transient population and is a first stop for many newcomers to the city. The majority of households speak languages other than English.
Chinese languages are spoken by about 40 per cent of residents followed by Japanese, Eastern European languages and the language of the Philippines, Tagalog, before
English, said Beshara.
The centre offers a drop-in daily from 9 a.m. to noon and is committed to literacy and building community through promoting interaction between parents and children and all participants with each other, she said.
“We have to say, ‘Please don’t be on your cellphone, please interact with your children,’ ” said Beshara. “We’re strong advocates for childparent bonding.”
Beshara said she raised her children “screen free.”
“Today, I have a 10- and an 11-year-old who’s always asking: ‘Can we go to the library and get more books?’”
The centre has an adult and children’s library and holds conversation circles at the Marpole and Oakridge libraries. It also offers story time, where parents and grandparents read to children in Chinese languages and in English, the Dad and Me drop-in on Saturdays, play time, sing time, potluck dinners and food skill programs.
“Everything is geared toward literacy,” she said.
Ryan said he finds that when he reads to his daughter, other children will shyly listen within earshot and he notices how attractive the activity is to them.
“We’re reading to them and they’re listening to voices,” he said.
He is not against screen time for kids because there are some good interactive reading sites and apps.
“But they don’t get the same benefit as when reading with an adult,” he said.
And he enjoys dropping in to the centre about two to three times a week so he can learn more about which books are appropriate for his daughter and when she is ready to move to the next level.
He loves seeing the joy in his daughter’s enthusiasm for books, which she shows by picking up her favourites and helping to finish the sentences when he reads from the familiar stories.
“Books allow for repetition and lengthy verbal interaction” with children, he said.
Ryan also likes to read from chapter books, like those by Roald Dahl, that she can’t understand yet.
“She can say some of the multisyllabic words that she doesn’t know the meaning of,” he said. “We’ve had many happy moments.”