Kids learn better when mums engage in education
AN Auckland mother’s determination to learn to read properly has rubbed off on her seven children.
West Auckland mother Ariana Timu took part in a long-running community course devoted to helping mums in some of Auckland’s poorest suburbs learn to read, do maths and gain basic skills.
Timu said since completing the Whanau Ara Mua course she can read to her young children every night and her eight-year-old son’s reading age was now on par with a 13-year-old’s.
Children’s learning is directly affected by their parents reading to them, according to an Australian study by IZA Research.
Reading to children, especially between the ages of four and five, has ‘‘significant positive effects on the reading skills and cognitive skills of children’’, the study found.
Timu said before taking part in the course she struggled to com- prehend what she was reading and could not write an entire story. Now she can blast her way through an essay.
‘‘As soon as you become a mum you stop your own dream for our own success,’’ she said. ‘‘But it’s OK to be selfish. It’s OK to love yourself and take care of yourself.’’
It was important for mothers to never stop learning and never stop dreaming, she said.
Timu completed the Whanau Ara Mua tertiary education family wellbeing course last year and has returned this year as an assistant tutor.
Timu is one of 190 mothers from low socio-economic backgrounds who completed the year-long course that focuses on literacy, numeracy, work skills and home skills in 2014.
Like the others on the course she left high school at 16 with no formal qualification.
When she signed up for Whanau Ara Mua she was an unemployed solo mum, who wanted to improve her literacy so she could one day train as an early childhood teacher.
Before the course the 35-yearold did not have the knowledge or the confidence to help her children with their homework.
‘‘Reading wasn’t a big thing in our home. I’m learning to love reading now.’’
Timu said she was proud of herself and her children for what they’ve achieved.
Her 18-year-old daughter is in year 13 at Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate and plans to attend Manukau Institute of Technology next year to study sport and fitness.
‘‘We’re just so proud our daughter made it to year 13, her father and I didn’t.’’
Timu said she had seen progress in all of her children’s academic results since she started the course and their teachers agreed.
She now wants to pass her love of learning onto other mothers so they can help their children.
But Timu said mothers had to want to learn – something that was often a challenge for teen mums like herself.
When Timu became a mother at 17 she was told she was a ‘‘nohoper’’.
‘‘Hearing that a lot you start believing that.’’
Teen mothers on the course often had low self-esteem, which they needed to improve if they were going to succeed, she said.