Children regard text messages as “reading”, according to recent reports, but Kristina Chetcuti discovers the National Book Council is having none of it and is soon launching a campaign to promote bedtime reading... of actual books.

Sharing a bedtime story with a child stimulated them, improving their emotional and social development, the National Book Council told a conference highlighting the importance of bedtime reading.

The Maltese approach to reading has to change, according to council chairman Ġorġ Mallia. “I’m all too familiar, from my teacher days, with parents’ attitude towards reading: ‘Sir, I’m all the time telling my son to read. I even beat him up!’ This is not on,” he said.

Malta always places last in Eurobarometer surveys about reading patterns and Dr Mallia said it was high time for some in-depth research into the reading problem in Malta. The council has, therefore, just commissioned Misco to carry out a survey on the reading habits of the Maltese. “We want to know whether there are books in households, whether people were read to when they were young and so on.”

Pending the collection of data, however, the council felt the need to work on the promotion of bedtime reading. “Bedtime is the best time for exposing children to books at a young age. The aim of this conference is to come up with ideas on how best we can motivate parents to do that,” he said.

The conference was well-attended by teachers, parents, published authors and people in the media but there was a pronounced absence of sales assistants working in bookshops.

Some of the ideas bounced around included evening storytelling on state television and book serialisation in newspapers.

The council has plans for a three-phase campaign targeting newborns, babies at six months and one-year-olds. In the first phase, new parents will be given a pamphlet explaining the importance of bedtime reading. When the baby is six months, parents will be given a DVD, produced by University students following the Communication course, visually highlighting the importance of bedtime reading. The final stage will be in collaboration with local councils.

It is important to target the early childhood group as studies showed children who are read to from an earlier age have better language development, according to Carmel Borg, former dean of the Faculty of Education at the University.

“It is important we address the reading needs of children in their actual family context and not just at childcare centres or schools,” he said, adding that reading aloud was a period of shared attention and emotion between parent and child, reinforcing reading as a pleasurable activity.

He noted Malta had a very high incidence of female presence in education. Mothers, he said, tended to have a more hands-on role than fathers and most primary education teachers were female.

“Yet, we live in a patriarchal society. In most families in Malta, the ‘minister of finance’ is the husband. We have to target this reality when analysing our reading patterns,” Prof. Borg said.

He recalled an incident he came across recently on the Logos book ship: “The wife and children were piling up books in a trolley and the husband was putting everything back on the shelves.”

Reading should start at birth, Education Faculty dean Valerie Sollars said. She hoped Malta had put behind it the time when people would buy books because their covers “matched” the colour of the sofa. “A house should be full of accessible books – and not for decoration,” she said.

Trevor Zahra, one of the most prominent Maltese authors, said listening to stories was a human instinct, adding his nanna Mananni was responsible for his love of storytelling. Although she did not know how to read and write, she had a brilliant memory and the luxury of time.

“My nanna had the perfect environment for storytelling: In the 1950s there was no mobile ringing to interrupt her stories or the television blaring out. Storytelling simply needs the right atmosphere,” he said.

Parents also have to be keen to read out to children. Chris Gruppetta, director of publishing at Merlin Library, said parents were very conservative when purchasing children’s books. “They’d rather buy simple books the children can read on their own. But this means the more creative and imaginative books – meant to be read by grown-ups to a child – are being excluded,” he said.

Why read to children?*

• It is an act of love.
• It is a time to wind down.
• It is an opportunity for children to learn new vocabulary.
• Children will learn to appreciate books as toys.
• Children will learn rhythm and rhyme.
• It creates an emotional bond between reader and child.
• It is the first step towards appreciating art as book illustrations are a child’s first art gallery.
• It is an opportunity to talk about values.
• It opens up a child’s imagination.

*Source: Carmel Borg