When five-year-old Lee started chatting more in English, his mother, Louiseann Dalli, did not feel she could hold a conversation with him.

“I was not confident with the level of my English, so when the school said it was hosting a language course for parents, I accepted the offer.

“During the course, we brushed up on our English skills and practised the language within a context such as cooking.

Now, when Lee comes up to me and asks me to speak to him in English, I am more confident about having a conversation with him,” Ms Dalli told Times of Malta just after the launch of a pilot project meant to boost English literacy at the Żabbar A Primary School, St Margaret College.

Ms Dalli is one of the parents who attended a course run by the English-Speaking Union at the Żabbar school, which ran parallel to a programme at the same school introducing English to young students.

Parent Louiseann Dalli and headmaster Alfred Debattista.

The need for the parents’ course was identified by the school’s headmaster, Alfred Debattista, as the pupils started picking up English and conversing freely.

Mr Debattista believes the school’s effort needs to be complemented by parents when the kids are at home. The responsibility to encourage students to read and speak in English has to be shared by the children’s teachers and guardians, he told parents and grandparents at the Żabbar primary yesterday.

The school launched a pilot project yesterday, in collaboration with Agenda Bookshop, which will supply the Żabbar primary with audiovisual resources from the You Can Read series, popular in the 1990s. This initiative forms part of the National Literacy Strategy, which promotes bilingualism and calls for more reading time in the daily school timetable.

Education Minister Evarist Bartolo urged parents to find time to read with their children but, more importantly, to speak with them.

If children have a problem speaking, they will have a problem learning

Many parents spend a lot of time on electronic gadgets like mobile phones, and there are three-years-olds who have communication problems.

“If children have a problem speaking, they will have a problem learning,” he said.

He urged the parents to recount their childhood memories to engage their children in conversation.

Two parents present for the launch, Romina Caruana and Claudette Fenech, told this newspaper they make sure their five-year-olds read every day.

“My son, a Year 1 student, has to read a bit before he is allowed to switch on his tablet,” one of them said.

Annabelle Bezzina said that her six-year-old “loves” reading English books but she is not as keen on Maltese. “So we line up her toys in front of her and she can read out loud to them.

“That way we turn reading into a game – she is the teacher and her toys are the audience.”