Having grown up as a child who surrounded themselves with books and words by any means possible, if you had told me that there were fellow young people out there who didn’t even like reading- I would have found this almost unfathomable. 

Of course, some people don’t like reading. In fact, I feel it’s more uncommon in this day and age to find people who do. Personally, I’ve found the percentage of people I’ve come across who like to read… let’s say, ‘non-staggering’. I put it to media infiltration. (Netflix). Or even ‘time’, seemingly growing greater in value with every single week that passes. If we don’t have time to go to the pub or reach Sainsbury’s before it closes, who has time to read right? 

I’d failed to even take into consideration that it could be an issue of the subconscious, that our deep-seated childhood traits could alter our attitudes towards the likes of reading.

That was, however, until Lizzie Catford’s talk on ‘Turning the Page: What’s Ahead for Young Readers’. Catford placed a heartfelt emphasis on the importance and necessity of developing strong reading habits from a young age, and the extent of which “reading in the early years brings a wide range of immediate and lifelong benefits that can transform children’s life chances.”1 Reading young has a myriad of positive outcomes, whether that be academically, through the development of linguistic, literacy, and cognitive skills. Having a positive impact on relationships by encouraging empathy with strong and effective characterisation. Bonding and emotional connectivity between children and their parents, creating shared memories through shared reading and the fact that “when a child sees an adult getting involved and enjoying a story, they enjoy it too”2. And simply, the sheer encouragement of a positive attitude to reading will only encourage a curiosity that becomes fed by more reading. It’s important. Very. 

It made me think. Firstly- Do I really believe that what my parents read to me at the age of 3 or 4 was impactful? Did I even remember it? 

Then- Did our parents read to us enough? Did they read to us properly? Did they read us right?

I wanted to believe that we’d retained something from our childhood reading days but I thought of my siblings. My sister; addicted to her I-pad from the age of 5 and the person who had a phase of reading the last chapter (only) of every book, just so she could have the knowledge without actually having to read. My brother; to be quite frank, the word ‘FIFA’ is all that’s coming to mind in the context of his ‘free time’. I wasn’t buying it.

To start my investigations, I targeted the no.1 household imposer of bedtime stories- my Dad. 

“Dad, when you think of your children, do any particular books spring to mind?”

“Hmmm, I’m not sure. Maybe Trainspotting?”

“Really? No, Dad… I more meant a book from our childhoods, something that embodies us in some kind of way?”

“Oh yeah, of course I do. For your brother it would be Tintin, for your sister it would be Zachary Quack, and for you…”

Of course, I knew what he was about to say;

“… Harry Potter.”

Despite a hatred for being wrong, I was struggling against a smile. I sauntered down to my brother’s room and, whilst his FIFA seat remained uninhabited and his window shutters open, the glass was perfectly casting the dusk’s glow onto the wall of Tintin posters that had hung above his bed far longer than any other possession had survived in that room. Next, my sister’s room. As one of the least sentimental people I know, her possessions tend to have a maximum-usage time of 10 months before their visit from the Grim ‘Ebay’er. After digging through her ‘everything’ cupboard, I experienced some genuine disbelief that she not only still possessed Hairy Maclary and Zachary Quack, but the full collection of Hairy Maclary stories. Of course, I didn’t need to visit my own room as I knew the cover of every book I’d ever bought or been given. This meant I also knew that the only book which had ever had its own shelf was my early edition Harry Potter– hand inscribed, the first present from my Dad when he and my Mum met, and the first bedtime stories that we read together. 

I’d underestimated what our former-sub consciousnesses had absorbed during youth and I’d undervalued how impactful our early years are on everything. Especially reading. And it made me want to give my parents more credit for the people we are now, as well as expressing credit to Lizzie Catford for bringing it to my attention. It was investigation closed. 

Bibliography

  1. Catford, L. (2023) Turning The Page: What’s Ahead for Young Readers [Online], The Bookseller. Available at: https://www.thebookseller.com/broadcast/event-streams/watch-the-childrens-conference-live-stream-here-2023 [Date Accessed: 02 October 2023]. ↩︎
  2. Ibid. ↩︎