A more comprehensive approach to child literacy
Book-sharing a way to develop thinking capacity to full potential
CHILD literacy is an essential part of the social and economic development of any society. Although the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation lists South Africa’s population as being 93% literate‚ this may not be particularly reflective of functional literacy – that is, the ability to read and write in a way that meets the demands of daily life.
Our rank on the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, which canvassed 50 countries, is 50th. So we need to tackle literacy locally. Books are important for this. Children’s cognitive ability is also important.
South Africa’s young children need to be given the opportunity, through early learning and stimulation, to develop their thinking capacity to its full potential.
Books are important for this, too. But those in the business of improving life outcomes among the nation’s children know that only focusing on improving capabilities like reading, or school readiness, misses some really important things.
One of the key activities that we implement in several of our programmes to improve child development, is book-sharing.
The name is not opaque. Book-sharing simply involves the sharing of a book between parent and child. It does not matter what sort of book, be it a picture book or one with words, but it must be discussed – pointed at and laughed over – by both the parent and child. Key here is that it is more about sharing than simply reading.
What this looks like, in our work, is caregivers sitting with their infants and toddlers on their laps, a large picture book in front of them, with four sets of eyes on the page.
The mom makes up a narrative about the pictures. She shares this tale with the child, asks the child questions, responds to what the child is pointing at or interested in.
The child periodically turns to her, wanting a kiss or simply being a bit distracted, before returning to trace their mom’s finger over the page, with their eyes. When sharing books, parents tend to spend longer on the page, create more elaborate stories and engage children more in joint activities than they might when simply reading.
We are very interested in whether, and how, it works. We assess small children’s capacity for attention (which is a pretty good way to predict how well they will do at school), and – when they are older – their vocabulary and memory. We also measure their caregiver’s sensitivity and reciprocity, a good predictor of the child’s long-term social and emotional well-being.
Sensitivity and reciprocity are psychological concepts that roughly translate to the type of caregiving: is the caregiver being sensitive to the child’s needs and communications? Do interactions between caregiver and child go two ways, or is it more in one direction?
What we have found is that books are just as good for bonding as they are for the brain.
Improving literacy and school readiness by facilitating improvements in children’s memory and attention are important, and we can achieve these via book-sharing.
But what book-sharing also improves are the softer, less visible but extremely important domains of maternal sensitivity and reciprocity.
These social, emotional qualities of parenting are really important, and if a caregiver is being sensitive and reciprocal in their interactions with her child, the chances are good that they will do well.
Books are not only important for literate parents, and books are not only for reading and teaching. Even picture books “read” by illiterate parents can be of value to child development.
Book are really good for children’s brains and for the relationships between caregivers and their children. As such – and because it would assist in the development of functional literacy, too – we need to support children’s use of books from an early age (very early – book-sharing can begin at 6 months of age).
Caregivers play a substantial role in supporting this. Book-sharing is a fun, bonding activity that exceeds merely teaching the child something or stimulating the child cognitively. It can act as a valuable tool for creating a particular type of engagement between a caregiver and child.
This raises an important issue – one with implications for both improving literacy, but more fundamentally, for facilitating these kinds of book-sharing activities: we need locally tailored books.
There are not many books that are locally or culturally relevant. As interventionists, we want parents to use picture books and share these with their children and use them to bond. We know this works and helps children. But it isn’t easy to do if the books and the pictures or stories in them are not relevant to South African children.
Aside from encouraging the use of books, we need to encourage their creation locally. We need to support the creation of books with locally relevant imagery with clear and colourful picture drawings that rely on minimal text to convey the story, so that illiterate or semi-literate parents are not left behind.
Research collaborators of ours, Lynne Murray and Peter Cooper (Mikhulu Trust), and illustrator Lynn Gilbert have produced a locally relevant book called This book is a wordless children’s book where two children living in a township and who have no food at home explore their neighbourhood.
They come across people who have a problem (chickens escaping from their pen; baskets toppling over; a dog stealing a street vendor’s sausages), and the children help them. Each time, they receive a gift of thanks. By the end of their walk they have enough food for a delicious meal with their mother.
The pictures are relevant, vivid and the story contains important messages about kindness and care which form the basis of a narrative between caregivers and their children.
NOT MANY BOOKS ARE LOCALLY OR CULTURALLY RELEVANT, SO WE NEED TO ENCOURAGE THEIR CREATION