Read and let read
The concentrated silence in the Basler Bücherbande gives way to a deafening roar as director Karin Minssen announces the next item on the programme: reading quarter hour. She has barely finished speaking before the children run to her and snatch the books out of her hands. They look for a quiet place and start to browse. Livia sets off on a bike ride through the Katzenmoor with the «Five Friends», David solves puzzles with the «Tiger Team», and Deja sits in a meadow with «Ferdinand the Bull» and sniffs flowers.
Bookworms develop during primary school years
Are the reading-enthusiastic 8- and 9-year-olds an exception? Not at all. The MIKE study found that around 70 per cent of 6 to 13-year-olds read a book at least once a week. Voluntarily and in their free time, excluding school books. Researchers at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) published the MIKE study in September last year, the first representative study on media use among 6 to 12-year-olds in Switzerland. Around 1000 children and 600 parents were surveyed. Despite digital competition, reading is the third favourite media activity of children, behind listening to music and watching TV, but ahead of gaming and even using mobile phones. According to the study's detailed report, 37 per cent of children read a book for an average of half an hour a day in their free time, while 90 per cent read a book at least occasionally in their free time. This means that Swiss children read significantly more than their German neighbours, where media use has been regularly surveyed since the 1990s. Why is it important for children to read not only at school but also in their free time? At the age of 18 months, the brain already has the ability to create inner images.
Creating images in the mind encourages creativity. Anyone who reads or is read to is therefore at a clear advantage.
When children listen to their parents' stories, poems or songs, this happens automatically. However, if children are bombarded with ready-made images through films or games, their creativity cannot fully develop. «Gaining access to your own images is a matter of training,» says Karin Minssen. The bookseller and theatre teacher runs the book gang at the Basel West library. She teaches children to develop their own stories in a playful way, imagining their own worlds and putting them down on paper. Parents often turn to her for advice when their children show no interest in books. Minssen: «My first question is always: do you read yourself?» This is because parents are the best role models for their children and have a great influence on their children's desire to read or lack of desire to read. In 2013, the German representative study «Re-measuring the reading landscape» found that although 83 per cent of parents want their children to have a good education, only three quarters of parents consider reading skills and only half of parents consider the joy of reading to be important educational goals. The MIKE study also asked parents how often they read to their children. Around a third of respondents use books, booklets or comics with their children every day or almost every day, while three quarters do so at least once a week. Not all parents seem to be aware of the connection between reading aloud, reading skills and later education as well as the development of creativity.
Bookworms develop during primary school years
Parents have the most important role to play in promoting reading. This is also the experience of Christine Tresch, a specialist in children's and youth literature at the Swiss Institute for Children's and Youth Media (SIKJM). The foundations for children's later development are laid in the first few years of life: When parents recite rhymes and verses or tell stories, children not only have a lot of fun with them, but also learn how sentences are grammatically correct, familiarise themselves with new forms of language and literary tricks such as suspense. «Children can recall this later,» says Tresch. If children have not had this experience, it is difficult to «catch up» later. The research report by the Max Planck Institute for Human Development concludes that bookworms develop during primary school: children who know a lot of children's books have a larger vocabulary and read more fluently. Conversely, however, the researchers also found that children who find reading difficult prefer to avoid it, which makes it increasingly difficult for them and they continue to avoid it. A vicious circle. Barbara Schwarz, reading animator at the SIKJM, therefore emphasises an atmosphere in which there is no right or wrong when encouraging preschool children to read. Through games or handicrafts, the children are encouraged to try out illustration techniques and gather concrete knowledge about the world.
Luring teenagers with non-fiction books
The older children get, the less influence parents have on whether they read in their free time. Teenagers in particular tend to orientate themselves towards their peers rather than their parents. Nevertheless, they can also make offers: if the daughter plays football, she might be happy about a football technique book, if the son wants to become a rapper, he might be interested in the biography of a rapper. «Five Friends», «Tiger Team» and «Ferdinand»: Livia, David and Deja's choice of books is in line with Tresch's experience of which books children particularly like to pick up. Incidentally, all of the top 10 most popular books for children and young people, as surveyed by the German KIM study, are also available in other media. For example, they have already been made into films, there are websites about them, blogs or fan fiction. «This is a phenomenon that the older generation has not experienced in this way,» says Tresch. Children like to read what their friends are reading, or even stories they know from other media.
Picture: Fotolia
Tips for parents
There is no single tip that will lead to success for all children. Christine Tresch from the SIKJM encourages parents:
- ihren Kindern Bücher zur Verfügung zu stellen, die ihnen Spass machen: ob eigene Bücher oder aus der Bibliothek.
- Kindern auch während der Schulzeit weiter vorzulesen und sie beim Lesenlernen zu unterstützen. Denn Lesen ist eine äusserst anspruchsvolle Tätigkeit, die nicht von jedem Kind gleich schnell erlernt wird.
- Kindern vorlzuesen und sie auch selbst lesen zu lassen: die Buchreihe «Erst ich ein Stück und dann du» ist zum Beispiel so aufgebaut, dass anspruchsvolle Textstellen (für Eltern) und leichtere (für Kinder) sich abwechseln. Dies sollte lustvoll und spielerisch geschehen, ohne Schule zu spielen.
The most popular children's books in Switzerland (as of January 2016)
- Gregs Tagebuch 10 – So ein Mist (Jeff Kinney)
- Heidi – Das Buch zum Film (Dorothee Haentjes- Holländer)
- Star Wars – Das Erwachen der Macht, illustrierte Enzyklopädie
- Schellen-Ursli (Alois Carigiet / Selina Chönz)
- Ostwind 3 – Aufbruch nach Ora (Lea Schmidbauer / Kristina Magdalena Henn)
- Bibi & Tina – Mädchen gegen Jungs (Bettina Börgerding / Wenka von Mikulicz)
- Das Zürich Wimmelbuch (Matthias Vatter)
- Schellen-Ursli – kleine Ausgabe (Alois Carigiet / Selina Chönz)
- Gregs Tagebuch 9 – Böse Falle! (Jeff Kinney)
- Geissbock Charly findet Heilkräuter – ein Duftbuch (Roger Rhyner)
The Swiss book trade has the hit parade lists compiled by GfK Entertainment. Books sold in a certain number of book outlets and retailers in Switzerland are included.
