Chapter 7

Literacy and Reading in Childhood

and Beyond

In many ways, the future of our world depends on what our children are reading
today. Our lives are shaped not only by experience but what we have read – from
books, newspapers and a wide range of digital forms. The world we see, what we
can do and will be able to do is deeply affected by what we read. In the case of
children, too, reading expands and defines their world, enhances their potential or
guides it, informs the decisions they make, helps them to innovate and become
change-makers or followers. It is part of what they are and will be, and hence what
our world is and will be.
Those born in a context where they did not learn to read rely on what has been
heard, seen and experienced rather than read. This may be rich enough to deal with
the context in which they live but possibly limited when going beyond. To a great
extent, not being able to read is a disadvantage in a fast-changing world increasingly
dependent on multiple forms of literacy. In moving towards a more just and equi-
table future, it is critical that such literacy gaps be addressed so that every citizen
may have a say, an agency, in determining our future. In such a scenario, where the
importance of reading is more evident every day yet not everyone reads, how can we
nurture readers who are not only good in reading but also find it good to read? This
chapter examines the different strands involved in the quest to take reading to all.

7.1  eading for Enjoyment: Connecting with Words, Self,

R
Community and the World

When talking of reading, it is important to focus not only on what is read but whether
it is read out of pleasure or under compulsion. That, perhaps, has a greater role in
shaping our world than merely the content we imbibe. In fact, ‘success’ in reading
is much more than attaining academic proficiency or doing well in examinations.
This engagement with the written/printed/on-screen word nurtures the reader’s

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 127

P. Joshi, S. Shukla, Child Development and Education in the Twenty-First
Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9258-0_7
128 7 Literacy and Reading in Childhood and Beyond

inner worlds, taps her deepest potential and leads to an informed, sensitive outlook
backed by a range of mental, emotional and social capabilities (Sumara, 2002). It
has to do with taking pleasure in reading and honing a curious mind that delights in
relating with the world around, understanding it, navigating it and contributing to it.
Those who explore the world through reading encounter a range of alternative views
and possibilities, perspectives different from their own, empathize with others who
are unlike them. “When reading, we extend our horizons; we come to understand
what it is like to be of a different gender, race, and class, to have a different psyche”
(Schwarz, 2008, p. 3).
Contemporary ways of looking upon literacy see it as a means of enabling stu-
dents to take part in the larger public and economic life (Ivanov, 2008). As we are
increasingly bombarded by an unending flow of information from multiple sources
(most of them digital), more than just being able to read and understand, it is neces-
sary to be able to sift, sort, find and decide on what is really relevant, and relate it
with what we already know. Also, in a connected world, reading is not just a per-
sonal activity but one that involves thinking along with others, often using higher
order skills.
In the last two decades, scholars from a number of disciplines, including psy-
chology, education, linguistics and sociology, have converged on a sociocultural
approach to literacy (Perry, 2012). This approach suggests that reading and writing,
whether in the first or second language, involves far more than the simple decoding
and coding of text. Literacy is understood as going beyond the written word to
include various forms in which meaning is communicated, such as icons on a screen,
emails and text messages, understanding ‘oral’ texts and myriad other representa-
tions. Thus, whether we are viewing and deciphering a screen or finding our way
through a website where we examine written descriptions along with pictures and
video/audio files and use icons or buttons, or engaging in a conversation where we
interpret and respond to each other’s words, we are taking part in ‘literacy’. Among
the various forms of literacy, what we usually call ‘reading’ is only one more form
(UNESCO, 2017).
Given this, literacy is not as simple as it might appear. In fact it requires engage-
ment with others where dialogue and communication with them leads us into liter-
acy. It is by engaging with those who are already practicing such forms of literacy,
rather than only through formal instruction, that we acquire and develop our literacy
skills. The process makes use of the skills of abstraction, reflection, analysis, inter-
pretation, cross-cultural understanding, collaborative problem-solving and critical
thinking (Delpit, 1988; Gee, 1990; Giroux, 1988; Vygotsky, 1978).
Although this is a multidimensional process, when it does take place, we may not
even be conscious of all the different skills we are using. Those who go through a
‘reading childhood’ where they take part in activities around reading, use their read-
ing in discussion with their friends or undertake tasks where they work together to
create something while making use of what they have read, are naturally putting this
‘complex social practice’ into use. In doing so, they experience the freedom to think
and imagine, and grow up being far more well-rounded and ‘world-ready’ than they
would have been otherwise. Reading for pleasure, sharing with others, and reading
7.1 Reading for Enjoyment: Connecting with Words, Self, Community and the World 129

as a way of life are an indispensable part of our children’s intellectual and ethical
development that will help them – and through them our future society – become
what they are capable of (Clark & Rumbold, 2006).
While reading is an essential part of a child’s (and society’s) development, unfor-
tunately, it does not follow that children enjoy reading. In our country, the tendency
has usually been to connect ‘reading’ with ‘study’ or ‘work’, and reading for plea-
sure is often regarded as a ‘waste of time’ or not a very useful activity. Given the
limitations of our schools (discussed in earlier chapters), it is not surprising that
reading levels of Indian children are low [ASER, 2016; National Council for
Educational Research and Training (NCERT), 2014]. This further makes it difficult
for children to read and adds to the sense of burden implied around reading. The
situation is only made worse by a paucity of quality reading material for children –
what is available, especially in Indian languages other than English, being extremely
inadequate (though the situation has begun to improve a little, as described in later
sections). Access to books through libraries and reading clubs is available only to a
miniscule elite section of society.
What a majority of children do get to read are textbooks – which might be dry or
uninspiring or uninviting, and are often read under pressure. Even if these are attrac-
tive, the compulsion involved and the fact that one will be tested on what has been
read kills such pleasure as might have been derived. This disconnection with read-
ing then carries into reading of materials other than textbooks. As most adults them-
selves do not read and children do not get to see adults engaging in reading, they
tend to grow up believing that reading is, in itself, not the most relevant activity.
Thus, a culture of ‘non-reading’ is created and perpetuated in a context like India.
In the United States, too, children grow up without sustained engagement with
books, but primarily because other engagements leave little scope for reading for
leisure (Lenhart, 2015). These multiple activities include school, homework, sports,
jobs, fashion, clothes, peers and, most of all, screens including the ubiquitous smart-
phone, all of which occupy children’s time particularly in adolescence (Lenhart,
2015).
A consequence of this can be seen in the numerous points in our life when we
avoid reading, to our detriment – as in notices, maps, fine print, manuals, notes in a
museum, rules and regulations, instructions to fill out forms, information on medi-
cines and other vital products and, of course, literature of different kinds or material
that helps us understand something deeply or enrich ourselves intellectually and
culturally. All this, as mentioned earlier, affects us not only as individuals, but also
as a society and a country. The specific literacy needs now being faced are brought
out well in the following:
Adolescents entering the adult world in the 21st century will read and write more than at
any other time in human history. They will need advanced levels of literacy to perform their
jobs, run their households, act as citizens, and conduct their personal lives. They will need
literacy to cope with the flood of information they will find everywhere they turn. They will
need literacy to feed their imaginations so they can create the world of the future. In a com-
plex and sometimes even dangerous world, their ability to read can be crucial. (Moore,
Bean, Birdyshaw, & Rycik, 1999, p. 3)
130 7 Literacy and Reading in Childhood and Beyond

7.2  upporting Reading: Connecting Symbols

S
with Experience to Create Meaning

As mentioned in the previous section, reading involves much more than putting
together the sounds represented by different letters to make words. It encompasses
being able to extract meaning, which includes deriving emotions, imagining situa-
tions, conjuring in the mind objects or persons or places that are not present before
one, ingesting information, understanding arguments, and ‘seeing’ narratives or a
flow of events. All this and more – from what are otherwise merely a set of scratches
or shapes on a flat surface! A critical aspect of this process of deriving meaning is
that the reader has to play an active role (Goodman, 1996). In fact, she has to col-
laborate with the written text in order for meaning to emerge. To understand how
this happens, consider an example from oral communication. If someone states, ‘I
was at a state bus depot…’, we instantly start thinking of the scene, the buses, the
ticket collecters, the crowd and the noise. But if the person completes the sentence
thus, ‘I was at a state bus depot in America’, – pouf, the image in our mind vanishes!
What we were adding to that statement in order to create the meaning in our mind
is no longer valid and we must dig around for other sources to be able to make sense
of it (or conclude that we can’t really ‘get’ it).
This is what we do when we read too – we start supplying experience and mean-
ing from our side in order to make sense of the text or complete what the text brings
to us. Readers use the written text to re-create in their mind the same or similar
picture or thought or emotion that the author holds in her mind (Keen & Zimmerman,
1997). Every reader does this by connecting it with some part of her own experi-
ence, by recalling it or comparing it. She thus breathes life into those symbols, and
converts them into meaning for herself. Learning reading is therefore as much about
this as about the symbols and their sounds.
This is a skill a child has to learn and it involves bringing her own experience,
imagination and thoughts to the text in order to be able to make meaning out of it.
That is why the role of the adult is significant in the beginning. By talking a great
deal about just a picture and a few words related to it, she helps the child to under-
stand and experience what it is to construct a world in one’s mind using the book as
a trigger. And, in sharing this world, the adult and the child also develop a strong
emotional bond. This sense of emotional bond remains with the child in later years
and makes reading a beloved activity.
Parents and teachers often say their children don’t want to read, even when there
is no shortage of reading material around them. What might be the reasons behind
this? A clue lies in the shift pointed out by research in children’s literacy over the
years. Traditionally, research viewed young children’s literacy learning as a process
that was predominantly skills-based, that is, relying on direct teaching of the alpha-
bet and the use of drills. Today, research shows us that young children can naturally
develop the ability to read and write through playful explorations and learn rules
from it (Fields, Groth, & Spangler, 2004; Ruddell, 2002). This is not to say that
‘teaching’ reading is not required, but that it helps only when children see meaning
and purpose in it.
7.3 Helping Children to Read at Different Stages of Development 131

The most common practice in the teaching of reading in India is to expose chil-
dren to the sounds made by different letters and their combinations. Primers often
relate each letter of the alphabet to a single word starting with that letter, along with
an object picture, and include drills for different sound combinations. Indian scripts
are based on a phonetically arranged alphabet and this is often relied upon as a
means to teach reading, with a focus on consonant–vowel combination (e.g. matras
in Hindi). This kind of use of phonics – focusing on the sound and shape/letter con-
nection – can help, but only when linked with the child’s interest and as an enjoy-
able means to make a ‘breakthrough’ to reading words/sentences the child wants to
read because that is what she was engaging with along with the adult.
When we move away from the meaning-making essence of reading and split it
into its sound–symbol parts in a mechanistic manner, put pressure on the child to
memorize and identify these isolated bits, or give ‘scores’ for performance in this
regard, it becomes a burdensome chore – and its soul, its magic, is lost (Bettelheim
& Zelan, 1982). If the learner’s mind is bound by limiting instructions and does not
have the freedom by which she can identify or create her own meaning, reading
loses pleasure and is reduced to a superficial activity. Very often the choice of read-
ing material has less to do with what interests the child and more with what the adult
thinks the child should read. In such situations, reading is learnt as an imposition
and is focused more on parts such as letters of the alphabet and the sounds they
make when joined (rather than the worlds they create in the reader’s mind) – an
unhappy experience for those compelled to go through it (Cremin, 2007).
We find that children experiencing these conditions do not develop an interest in
reading – and they certainly do not learn as fast as we know them to be capable of.
Later, children may be able to read when they have to, in an instrumental manner
(say, for acquiring information or preparing for an examination) but are not seen to
be reading for pleasure. In numerous ways, this is a constraint and prevents children
from exploring, being curious and expanding their horizons.

7.3  elping Children to Read at Different Stages

H
of Development

Language develops through social interactions and so, too, does literacy. As Lawhon
and Cobb (2002) and Ruddell (2002) point out, both language and literacy emerge
through social interactions and the language used at home. For a child, parents’ and
caregivers’ enthusiasm about reading, learning and their curiosities is the biggest
asset in helping her to learn to read. Parents’ and adults’ influence on the child’s
later literacy starts well before they first hold a book before the child, especially if
they themselves genuinely enjoy reading and are happy to see the child ‘infected’
with the same passion. Adults who are bored by reading or find it a chore are, in that
sense, a limitation for the child. As a parent, therefore, it is best to see this as a great
opportunity to stay engaged with life and affect your child with the same enthusi-
asm. Parents’ priorities make a real difference – for instance, if they are more
132 7 Literacy and Reading in Childhood and Beyond

concerned about the child’s clothes and appearance than what the child reads, that
is what the child will learn from them.
Though the one-to-one engagement has a powerful influence on enabling the
child to enter the world of reading, adults often say that they do not have the time,
or that it is impractical. However, every small action counts. Reading takes place in
a home where everyone reads, and is not something expected only of the child. A
home of this kind would naturally have a print-rich environment (i.e. actual paper
books, and not just e-books).
As mentioned, the engagement with reading starts well before the child joins
school or even preschool. This does not imply ‘teaching reading’ but creating a
shared, pleasurable experience (Lockwood, 2008). For younger age groups, the role
of the parent in initiating, engaging and exploring with the child is crucial. As chil-
dren grow older, they themselves take the initiative, with parents playing a support-
ive and less active role.
The Early Years Infants, far from being ‘empty vessels’, make sense of the context
all the time and think on their own; this ongoing process leads to learning and
enables them to construct their knowledge (Fields et al., 2004; Vygotsky, 1978).
This is a natural process for children as they play around with language, symbols
and pictures, assigning meaning to different items as they wish and slowly make the
letter–sound connection as they interact with adults.
Reading is often regarded as something ‘serious’ or ‘academic’, in contrast with
‘play’. However, for children there need not (and in fact should not) be any differ-
ence between the two. Engaging with reading is as much part of play and explora-
tion (Hall & Robinson, 1995) and experimentation (Fields et al., 2004) for them. As
they pick up bits of reading and writing, children begin incorporating them into play
and putting them to different kinds of real-life uses such as writing their names,
making signs, or scrawling letters to indicate something in a drawing they have
made. Children pretend to read, give words to their scribbles, ‘play teacher’ and
love to tick or cross as if ‘correcting’ answers. How can home and family help in
this natural process by which a child learns to read and is drawn to reading? As a
parent, you helped your child to learn to speak, and that process is very similar to
how children learn to read (Cambourne, 1988; Chomsky, 1972).
We describe ahead the process of children learning language and reading, based
on our work with children in central India in the late 1980s and early 1990s
(Agnihotri, Khanna, & Shukla, 1994). This is reflected in the Primary Education
Programme implemented by Eklavya – Institute for Educational Research and
Innovative Action, including in its integrated textbooks Khushi-Khushi (approxi-
mate translation from Hindi is ‘Joyfully’) for Classes I to V (Eklavya, 1988–2008).
In the subsequent years, we have had opportunity to work in early years learning
and reading in different parts of India. What stands out in our observation of chil-
dren is that it is purpose that drives a child to use language and, through use, acquire
both oracy and literacy. The human context, especially the relationships and the
emotional environment that the child experiences, makes an extraordinary impact
on the nature and degree of learning attained.
7.3 Helping Children to Read at Different Stages of Development 133

While a child is constantly assimilating information from the environment, it is

how she responds to them that is important. For the child’s mind develops as a result
of what she does with it, that is, the ‘actions’ she performs through and with her
mind. This includes what she can think about, articulate or convert into mental
‘instructions to herself’. A few examples of this are:
• recognizing objects or actions (connecting names and things or acts),
• performing actions (picking something and placing it somewhere, or sorting
objects) or,
• relating with a person or a pet.
All of these and similar processes require thought, perhaps articulation (though
not always), and then action. An infant may not have words but does have thought –
a kind of ‘proto language’ that enables her to function, respond to stimuli (such as a
picture) and situations (e.g. wanting to get off a bed and not being able to) (Halliday,
1975).
The ability to articulate sounds that represent some meaning (initially a ‘private’
language where a child makes a sound for specific meaning, for example, ‘chia’ for
every bird or chidiya in Hindi) enables a child to engage with her environment and
function within it. As a child’s grasp of language and the ability to understand and
make meaning increases, we find her expanding the scope of her mental activity,
such as:
• Working out associations and relationships (e.g., in sorting, classification,
sequencing of objects)
• Recognizing a sequence of events (as in a narrative)
• Enjoying patterns (for instance, in the rhythm or rhyme in songs)
• Understanding and conveying instructions/intention, and
• Identifying what is not expected or is surprising.
Language development facilitates cognition and children’s early language devel-
opment sets the stage for later literacy and school success (Early Head Start, 2006).
Also, at a later stage (around the age of 6 years), language enables the child to move
beyond the egocentric stage and become a social being (Garton, 1992). Providing
young children with exposure to language and the opportunities to use it for a vari-
ety of purposes is, therefore, crucial.
Within this overall process, the learning of reading marks a very specific aspect
of language development. The child’s mind is now processing a great deal more data
than before, and certainly many times more than if we were to rely on experience
and exposure to oral language alone (vocabulary, or just the names of different
things that make up our world, is a huge list!). Through the contact with books, she
is also exposed to
• Multiple representations (pictures and sentences that are linked to each other)
• Structure (of sentences, paragraphs, narratives)
• Sequence (as in sequence of events, narratives)
• Unfamiliar environments, characters and views, and
134 7 Literacy and Reading in Childhood and Beyond

• A host of other aspects that trigger a wide range of thoughts, imagination, fanta-
sies and feelings.
A parent or caregiver introducing books to the child is actually introducing a
wonderful world to be explored together. An exposure to books can never be too
early! For parents who note and enjoy the child’s response, this experience is a part
of relating with the child and taking delight in her speech and actions. It is a fortu-
nate development when the child excitedly anticipates the ‘reading time’ with a
parent as one of her favourite times of the day. Occasionally, the child may be so
eager to read (with the parent) that the adult may have to drop whatever they are
doing and dive into it. When a child is in the midst of others in the family who also
read, engaging with books becomes a ‘natural’ part of everyday life because every-
one else does it too and it is not forced only on the child. Parents can even show the
child the book they themselves are reading. ‘What are you reading today?’ can
become a commonly heard question in the family.
Books can be placed in different parts of the house so that any nook can be a
place to sit and read. Arranging such a ‘reading house’ with the child and replacing
books as they are read or are to be read again can be a wonderful experience. At the
same time, it is important to know what to avoid. If it becomes a task or a teaching
exercise, that would be like an assault on the child! Avoid putting pressure on the
child to read in order to gain admission to a ‘good school’. Children could lose their
inclination to read and may become ‘good’ in reading but will do it out of necessity
rather than for the love of it.
In Chap. 4, we have discussed the role of oracy in preparing the ground for learn-
ing to read. Other aspects of early cognitive development too help pave the path to
reading: shape and sound recognition, sorting and categorization, comparing and
contrasting, identifying patterns and free drawing. In early exposure to books, chil-
dren also grasp that the printed signs (words) contain meaning, and the direction in
which they are read (e.g. in Indian languages, lines are read from left to right, mov-
ing downwards, with the right pages being turned over to left). These are often
referred to as comprising the ‘pre-reading’ phase though it may be intertwined with
early exposure to reading rather than distinct from it.
Parents often worry about whether they are going in the ‘right sequence’ or if the
child is at the ‘right point’ in terms of her reading ability. In fact, this is not so
straightforward, and something we need not worry too much about. Children acquire
basic concepts of literacy, begin to perceive and use patterns, and their literacy
develops as a continuum (Browne, 2009; Clay, 1975; Miller, 2000). It cannot really
be seen in terms of separate ‘parts’ where discrete milestones in terms of letters,
sounds or their combinations are treated as distinct from each other (Browne, 2009).
What matters is whether children find their engagement with written language use-
ful and purposeful.
As a result, each child is unique in how she goes about learning to read. It is dif-
ficult (and perhaps not feasible) to predict exactly at what level a child will be able
to read or write by a given time (Fields et al., 2004). That is why the home offers a
solid ground for developing reading since children are given individual attention
7.3 Helping Children to Read at Different Stages of Development 135

and are responded to. Where children do not get such a supportive environment
before they enter school, the literacy levels they achieve later on in school are greatly
affected and reduced.
In the Indian context, opinion is often divided between the ‘whole language’
versus the ‘phonics’ approaches, each of which offers a different methodology of
teaching reading (CARE/USAID, 2016). The former relies on emphasizing mean-
ing and enabling purposeful use of language in different contexts. In contrast, the
latter utilizes the phonetic structure of the alphabet of Indian languages to enable the
recognition of letters and decoding (i.e. application of the knowledge of sound–
symbol relationships to pronounce written words). This is seen as a critical step in
learning reading, that is, being able to make sense out of what has been decoded.
In our experience, the choice between the two approaches is a false dichotomy
and trying to implement these in their ‘pure’ form is neither helpful nor necessary
(Castles, Rastle, & Nation, 2018; Menon et al., 2017). Teachers have long relied on
introducing the alphabet and letter combinations and made only limited headway, as
the repeated surveys of reading levels indicate (ASER, 2016). However, merely
creating situations for the use of language and providing a print-rich environment
too is insufficient and unlikely to translate into children reading fluently. Ultimately,
the teachers’ responsibility is to ensure the learning of reading through the use of
processes designed to attain this objective. They could begin by creating purposeful
contexts where children make sense out of texts – to begin with, of learner-­generated
texts (i.e. writing on the blackboard words and sentenced uttered by children in
discussion with the teacher around a theme of interest), and later other texts appro-
priate for the group involved (e.g. a well-loved poem or sentences in picture story).
The texts that children can derive meaning from can be utilized to help children
identify units of meaning (e.g. phrases or words, often referred to as ‘sight vocabu-
lary’) from which individual letters or sound combinations can then be derived, as
distinct from introducing a series of letters without a context that interests
children.
However, there will be occasions when a child is unable to make sense of a text
from cues such as pictures, known words or hints provided; at such times, teachers
will need to supplement this with overt instruction in specific sound–symbol rela-
tions as required. A watchful approach where teachers respond to children’s prog-
ress and needs by providing opportunities drawing from a repertoire of diverse
methods is most likely to succeed. This is a pragmatic approach focused on ensuring
learning among children rather than trying to remain faithful to a whole language or
phonics methodology.
Middle Childhood and Adolescence Once children have been introduced to books
and reading, how does a caregiver’s or educator’s role evolve over the next few years
as the child moves through elementary school and beyond? Children are increas-
ingly independent over the course of these years, more engaged with friends and
multiple other activities, with the school too taking up a fair amount of time.
However, the need for parents to be interested in their lives still continues.
Adolescents might grumble about their parents or show that they don’t particularly
want their attention; on the other hand, they also continue to identify with and inter-
136 7 Literacy and Reading in Childhood and Beyond

nalize what their parents do and depend on them for emotional support (Saraswathi
& Oke, 2013; Steinberg, 2001). However, you can read aloud to the child up to the
age of 12-15 years and may have to mediate on aspects ranging from word mean-
ings to pronunciation to context and interpretation where the meaning is not obvious
or is beyond the child’s understanding at that time.
Adults can take cues on where the child needs help while respecting her indi-
viduality. Parents continue to be a role model and the manner in which they engage
with books and value reading (rather than test scores) influences the child’s attitudes
greatly (Carroll, 2013). This is also the time when parents could discuss the books
they are reading and share some snippets, gradually helping the child to make a
transition to books for more mature readers.
Significance of Reading for Achievement During the School Years and
Beyond While interaction with teachers and peers over the school years is crucial,
it is reading that is the mainstay of a child’s ongoing education and development as
a person. As the child moves to higher grades over the years, the proportion of learn-
ing that has to take place through reading increases too (Horowitz & Samuels, 2017;
Sheldrick-Ross, McCechnie, & Rothbauer, 2005). The role of the teachers, parents
and students also changes, with children now being relied upon to do more learning
on their own. Whether it is reading texts for content, following instructions to per-
form activities that will enable them to learn (such as written tasks or experiments
or coding, etc.), or to share their learning with others, reading becomes more and
more important. A child who has somehow been ‘turned off’ by the experience of
reading at an early age will naturally be handicapped. This loss of interest can take
place due to many reasons – such as when the emphasis is on letters and correctness
rather than meaning, or there is an absence of a shared joy in what reading is reveal-
ing (e.g. an interesting story), or pressure and stress is experienced where it should
not be.
Parents are often surprised to learn that children love being read aloud to (and
learn a great deal from it) till the age of 12–14. This is because the words gain mean-
ing when interpreted in light of experience and connection with the world, which is
where an adult reader makes a text come alive in a way that a child reading alone
may not be able to. It also enables a strong emotional and intellectual connect with
the child, making for an experience that the child loves being a part of. In turn, this
provides the motivation for further engagement with reading (Klauda, 2009;
LaCroix, 2014).
With time, as children gain greater command over language, their vocabulary
grows, and they also become adept at finding out meanings, whether from the dic-
tionary or the Web or other sources (such as the nearest adult or peer). Being
involved with your adolescent’s reading brings the added advantage that you might
learn from the child, much more than you anticipate. The process also becomes
more collaborative as children grow older, and the skill of collaboration (which is
essential going forward) extends into children’s interactions with each other.
If there is engagement with reading and access to a range of reading materials,
students are also much more able to deal with school texts (which are often dense,
7.4 Ensuring Time for Reading 137

boring and may offer insufficient input on various learning objectives and topics).
Exposure to other reading around a variety of topics leads a child to being able to:
• Draw meaning from various sources
• Learn to understand different kinds of texts (including the kind found in text-
books) and
• Supplement the limited information in textbooks with exposure through content
from a much wider area.
As facility with language grows, it becomes much easier to acquire more and
more knowledge and understanding. Active readers are also able to connect differ-
ent aspects of their everyday life, make decisions, solve problems or understand
perspectives that may not be evident in the beginning. Parents who are engaged with
their children’s reading can contribute greatly by helping to make choices, expand
interests or expose new areas. They will, of course, also learn what a child wants to
read and help her find it and delve into it (Carter, Chard, & Pool, 2009; Klauda,
2009).
Since children usually face high-stakes ‘content-based’ examinations, there is a
tendency to value reading mainly for its contribution to success in achieving marks/
grades. However, reading has a much larger role in attaining excellence in education
because it helps children to work on higher order learning objectives that make a life-
long difference – problem-solving, meaning-making, self-reliance and creativity
(Greenall & Swan, 1986). It also expands access to ‘higher-order content’ from across
a range of disciplines, from great writers, artists and musicians to thinkers, historical
figures to scientists and social scientists. Reading for a purpose (such as finding out
and putting together information from different sources to answer a specific question
or solve a particular problem) prepares children for being able to deal with situations
they are likely to find themselves in again and again in their future life.
For much older students who are in higher education, reading for academic pro-
ficiency requires not only high volumes of reading but also the ability to review and
process different kinds of material while performing a variety of tasks on its basis.
If it has not been learnt earlier, this needs to be learnt now. Advanced reading skills
take time, consistent engagement and guidance – those who have not attained these
when younger are considerably disadvantaged in higher education (Lea & Street,
1998).

7.4 Ensuring Time for Reading

A concern for parents might be to ensure there is sufficient time and engagement
with reading for pleasure during these years. By this stage, the constant exposure to
non-print media (on TV, computers, mobiles, apps, gaming devices and tablets)
requires parents to set time limits and also supervise where necessary. It is worth
making sure that there is a substantial amount of ‘tech free time’, with no back-
ground TV to distract the child. (Others watching TV when the child has been
‘asked’ to read is both unfair and counterproductive.)
138 7 Literacy and Reading in Childhood and Beyond

Beyond the age of 10, there is a need to exercise extreme caution regarding the
child’s online activities. When a child spends time with other children in their
homes, the parents’ hard work in maintaining limited screen time may be wasted if
the child is on-screen elsewhere! As always, when the parent is with the child and
making sense of the world together, screen time has a different role. However, when
it is a substitute for parent’s presence or other activities, that should raise a red flag.
(Chapter Eight identifies various issues and concerns related to the use of digital
media by children.)
If there is sufficient time for reading amidst all other claims to the child’s atten-
tion, a parent can plan out broad directions for the engagement with reading.
• As the child grows older, it is important to engage her in longer texts. It is time
to move beyond books that have texts only in small chunks at a time. Get hold of
long stories or expository material and make it engaging for the child by raising
curiosity or asking questions that frame the material.
• Parents might worry if the engagement with reading will continue as before or if
the child will tire of their involvement. Children are very responsive – rather than
feel something has been foisted on them they are likely to be delighted to take
part in it, especially if a parent is going to be involved even marginally. It is only
when it is made into a ‘teaching experience’ by the parent that children start
preferring to be on their own.
• Reading regularly as a joyful activity in its own right not limited to studying or
homework or preparing for exam, sustains readers.
In this context, homework too, offers plenty of opportunities. Parents could
engage with the child in identifying information from different sources, read up and
connect these into a cohesive whole. The work brought home might also lend itself
to exploration of non-fiction. With slightly older children, parents could sit with a
dictionary, a laptop/tablet when reading a book, say, about a plant or flower or ani-
mal. Different kinds of information could be looked up in the dictionary or the
Internet; for example, if a ‘tapir’ is mentioned, exploring various information
sources and videos related to the tapir could be an exciting and enjoyable activity.
Overall, parents stand to learn along with their child as they expand, deepen and
join in the child’s engagement with reading from multiple sources, including news-
papers, sites, books, reference materials and so on. While doing so, they could help
children understand and assess what is good/reliable material or website. It is also
useful to talk about the books – the subtitles, authors, publishers, when published,
the theme, what is easy or not, whether there is agreement with the main points, etc.
The illustrator or a translator has as important a role as the author in making the
book accessible to the reader, and discussing their work opens up new areas of
exploration. This way of relating with the books slowly forms a way of locating
them within a flow or framework/body of knowledge, rather than as individual
pieces. A parent does not have to do much after a point – the child takes charge, it
becomes a motivation and part of life, with the parent playing a supporting role.
7.5 Relating Through Reading 139

Reading for pleasure is often lost when children start secondary school. Other
interests now compete for their leisure time and schoolwork becomes time-­
consuming. During this period of transition, it is essential that reading continues to
have a place as a pleasurable activity, chosen for fun, not just for schoolwork
(Reynolds, 2004). Enjoying books during these years is important, and can offer
young adults insights into the world around them, as well as relief from stress and
an enjoyable escape to other worlds!

7.5 Relating Through Reading

Reading offers a surprisingly easy and enriching means of creating and supporting
a wide range of relationships, both within the family and beyond. Some of the ways
in which this can manifest are given below:
• If there are other people in the family – grandparents, or uncles and aunts – par-
ents could get the child to involve them in reading aloud as well as the other
activities mentioned earlier. This not only enriches the child in terms of under-
standing reading but also deepens the relationships.
• Similarly, visits with the child to bookstores/bookfairs/children’s literature festi-
vals/interactions with authors where possible can be an important periodic event,
recalled with much affection in later years.
• Books are expensive and often hard to get. Exchanging books, sharing them
among friends, creating a community of parents who are interested in encourag-
ing their children to read, is a great way to address this. Many other social skills
are learnt as well, from negotiating to reminding to taking care of others’ books
to the various courtesies involved.
• Reading can easily become a group activity for a child and her friends to do
together. It can be a fun event repeated now and then.
• Books offered as gifts continue to be of value again and again over the years.
The approach to inculcating a love for reading advocated in this section might
appear to be ‘too much to expect in today’s times’ or ‘idealistic’. However, it is not
merely a matter of what is practical but what may be considered really desirable and
exert a lasting influence over the course of a child’s life. It is more about how par-
ents view life – reading is not just a discrete, isolated activity but something that
informs everything they do. It is about how they relate with life, what they are curi-
ous about or love to do, what they seek to achieve and gain satisfaction from. And
whether they see that as something they want their child to experience, grow up
with, and is perhaps the real inheritance she will gain from them. Among the various
school subjects, reading is, unsurprisingly, the most affected by parental involve-
ment (Senechal & LeFevre, 2002).
140 7 Literacy and Reading in Childhood and Beyond

7.6  ddressing ‘Disadvantage’ to Create and Sustain Young

A
Readers

Many of the suggestions made in earlier sections require resources that would be
well beyond the means of most families. In such situations, growing up in homes
without books or exposure to print material, children miss out on literacy but also
on the forms of language that literacy makes possible. In the case of children with
disabilities, reading is, of course, a subset of the issues involved in development and
learning. However, children need not remain deprived of access to literacy, reading
and the development that follows from this engagement. Teachers, fieldworkers,
officials and resource persons engaged with the education system, NGOs and edu-
cational programmes have a crucial role in enabling reading for children in difficult
circumstances. For instance, a library programme that involves parents, community
members and schools in providing children active exposure to books and interac-
tions related to them can contribute greatly to their learning and development, while
also creating bonds among the various stakeholders (Joshi, 2017). In the following
subsections, we examine the different aspects involved in addressing this issue.
Lack of access to books and reading In homes that lack reading material, chil-
dren’s experience is limited to the common form of spoken language rather than the
‘standard’ language used in school, textbooks or books to communicate informa-
tion, ideas, narratives and other forms of content. The language used at home is
mainly oral and allows the speakers to revise or re-state what they have said or the
listeners to probe and ask for explanations or elaboration. In contrast, the written
form of language is fixed and is not familiar to children who have limited exposure
to print. It is also very formal and bound by various rules to which children from
non-­mainstream/disadvantaged backgrounds have no introduction.
This places on teachers the responsibility of not just teaching the alphabet but
also the more ‘standard’ version of the language with which children need to be
familiar before they can engage in reading. Hence the need for a strong programme
to develop children’s oral language skills before initiating the development of lit-
eracy, as that exposure then enables children to engage with written texts and antici-
pate/guess their meanings. This is particularly relevant in our multilingual contexts
where children’s access to the school language may be limited or absent. The great
significance of oracy as a foundation for literacy has been discussed earlier in Chap.
4. The low levels of literacy across India, especially in government primary schools,
are a pointer to the dire need to see this as an issue of learning the standard language
orally and not just through the alphabet and the written form (ASER, 2016; CARE/
USAID, 2016; Menon et al., 2017).
Reading could be introduced at the ECE centre/anganwadi/primary school. As
mentioned earlier, an exposure to plenty of oral activities is required before reading
is introduced. Using primers is not very helpful as they do not have much text and
are often not engaging. Far more useful is to provide children with a library of age-­
appropriate books. With new policies coming into effect for Integrated Child
Development Scheme (ICDS), Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and the Samgra
7.6 Addressing ‘Disadvantage’ to Create and Sustain Young Readers 141

Shiksha Abhiyan (that merges the elementary- and secondary-level programmes),

books are now available through large-scale, country-wide programmes that have a
vast reach across government schools, with 82.96% of them reported to have librar-
ies (Mehta, 2016).
Currently, language and literacy education in Indian classroom tends to be domi-
nated by an emphasis on sound–symbol–picture association and rote memorization
of texts as well as comprehension answers (Menon et al., 2017) rather than language
usage, meaning-making, effective use of phonics where needed and exploration of
books. Even where more ‘active’ learning is promoted, this is essentially around
various forms of drilling, through the use of flashcards and worksheets that involve
copying and repeating as against applying what has been learnt into new contexts.
In Chap. 4, we indicated that adults tend to underestimate children’s intellectual
skills, and language learning is one area where this is commonly visible. Textbooks,
too, often present fragmented and non-literary material that is insufficient to provide
children a strong basis for their language development.
In this context, the use of children’s literature through classroom libraries would
contribute greatly to learning. It provides an opportunity to expand children’s hori-
zons, introduce them to Indian writers and illustrators (there are now a large number
of excellent children’s books being produced in the country) and expose them to the
aesthetic dimension of language. However, identifying appropriate books for vari-
ous age groups and children from different backgrounds remains a challenge. This
is addressed in the Guide to Good Books [National Centre for Children’s Literature
(NCCL), 2012] prepared with a number of experienced writers and professionals. It
provides practical and easy to implement guidance on selecting books based on the
cognitive and pedagogical/curricular requirements of children at various stages of
development. It takes into account literary and aesthetic aspects, and how the RTE
mandate may be fulfilled through the appropriate choice of books. Using such a
framework to develop and utilize libraries in schools would also pave the way to a
greater engagement in the arts and self-expression in an educational context that has
favoured the sciences at the cost of this dimension of children’s development
(Nussbaum, 2012).
Value of a Read-Aloud Programme For children born in families where parents
are not literate, early exposure to being read aloud to is even more critical as they
grow up hearing considerably fewer words than their counterparts born in affluent
families. It is not the ‘word gap’ alone but the limited exposure to the different ways
in which language is used for different purposes that reduces children’s opportuni-
ties to develop the language structures needed for later literacy. Children in these
circumstances also hear fewer encouraging cues, for example, ‘What did you think
of that?’ versus ‘Don’t touch that’ (Sparks, 2015, para. 8) which further restricts
their opportunities to use language. A lack of exposure to books also implies that
children have not been exposed to ‘standard’ or ‘formal’ language, of the kind used
in classrooms and textbooks, making it difficult for them to cope when they enter
school.
These gaps create lifelong disadvantages that are difficult to transcend in later
years. Various surveys of learning achievement in India have repeatedly shown low
142 7 Literacy and Reading in Childhood and Beyond

levels of reading among children from underprivileged backgrounds, with these per-
sisting over the school years (ASER, 2016; NCERT, 2014). One way to close the
gap might be to find ways to have someone read aloud to children – at home if need
be. This would be valuable for schoolgoing as well as out-of-school children,
including those who have simply lost interest in reading. Whether adult/youth vol-
unteers or other schoolgoing children or NGO workers or teachers or ICDS instruc-
tors, a large force is needed to fan out and provide early reading services in much
the same way as early vaccination or nutrition advice is emphasized.
Any effort to promote reading among marginalized groups requires books that
children can relate with, which have some similarity with their backgrounds and
contexts, and are of course in their mother tongue/closest language. Bilingual books
too are now commonly available (including in many tribal languages) and can be
used, though the idea is not that the text should be translated but that exposure
should be provided. A series of books comprising the Adhikahani Series are avail-
able for young children in Munda, Saura, Kui and Juang, four tribal languages of
Odisha in eastern India, developed by Pratham Books and Ignus ERG (Pratham
Books, 2015). The stories are illustrated in Saura mural style that echo the chil-
dren’s cultural context.
Many of the suggestions mentioned earlier for adults interacting with children
over books – such as reading in groups with friends or interacting with other adults
and so on – are applicable in these contexts too. It is essential, though, that reading-­
related curriculum and resources at the early childhood education (ECE) centre/
school are implemented hand-in-hand with parents. Working and collaborating with
parents on their beliefs and behaviours about literacy can influence their children’s
development substantially. This is a critical aspect, as it affects how a child’s engage-
ment with reading develops. It is important to communicate to parents that they do
not have to teach their child reading but can support her and that they don’t need to
be literate in order to do it. If the child brings home a book provided at the ECE
centre or school, they need only to be around the child when the book is opened, or
turn the pages for the child, even if for a few minutes. The child must sense that the
parent values the activity. This is somewhat akin to a middle-class family helping a
child with a foreign language or mathematics that they themselves don’t under-
stand, by signalling to the child that it is a worthwhile activity.
If there are pictures in the book, discussing those, or later asking the child what
the book contains and talking about it – are simple acts that make a great difference.
Allocating a small space for the child to sit and read or keep books is also very help-
ful and can be done whatever the nature and size of the dwelling. Occasionally,
especially in the early weeks of contacts with books, parents can encourage the
child to handle the books carefully (if they have not had exposure, the initial impulse
of children might be to tear pages).
The Experience of Reading for Children with Disabilities In the case of children
with disabilities, the introduction of reading may be affected by the child’s pace of
development, social-emotional and attachment issues, physical or cognitive
7.7 Age-Appropriate Reading Material 143

c­ hallenges or even a misreading of the child’s abilities. As with everything else,

though, it is also affected by the attitudes and methods typically prevalent.
The most common practices are based on the general notion that it is difficult to
teach children with disabilities and ‘reading for pleasure’ is a distant goal for them.
As a result, schools tend to become instrumental and behaviouristic in their approach
to the education of children with disabilities (Franklin, 1980), with the intention of
enabling them to become ‘functional’ and be able to ‘get by’. Towards this, what-
ever is taught is broken down into small bits and presented as ‘small, short or easy’
tasks, with a reward attached to each. If a child can perform this limited task, the
process moves to the next one in the ladder. Schools then ‘integrate’ the child (i.e.
place the child with others), on the assumption that various sub-objectives have now
been ‘covered’ – only to find that the child has fallen behind again (Joshi, 2001).
This is what schools tend to apply to reading for children with disabilities as well.
Reading is taught in ‘small’ parts, through limited inputs that are difficult to com-
bine into meaningful units or use towards arousing the child’s interest. Sounds, sym-
bols, words are taught separately, in ‘short’ doses in the belief that they are ‘easier
to absorb’. The compulsion to ‘teach’ these parts takes over and becomes more
important than engagement or enjoyment or relating with the text. Such a reduction-
ist approach using discrete, stand-alone parts is not necessarily helpful – being dis-
connected from meaning makes it a very tiresome experience for the child. Even if
a student does learn to recognize the individual parts, putting them all together is not
easy as they were never seen together to begin with, and learning further becomes a
struggle (Dudley-Marling, 1986). In fact, as suggested earlier, here too, our efforts
should focus on providing a language-rich environment which is interesting for the
child, keeping her context, needs and capabilities in mind. The key suggestion is to
ensure that the engagement with reading is designed around the interests of children
rather than the requirements of language. It is important that the child enjoys the
process and engages with it in whatever way s/he feels like or is capable of.

7.7 Age-Appropriate Reading Material

As someone wanting to involve their child in reading from as early as possible, a

parent will naturally face the question: ‘What kind of book would be good for my
child?’ Very often, what parents think of as a good book may not be what a child
thinks is a good book! That is because adults are looking for ‘what to teach’ whereas
for the child ‘what is interesting and fun’ is important. Many adult notions too may
not work for children.
For instance, it is not necessary that multicolour books are more attractive to very
young children than black and white ones. That is because vision is the least devel-
oped sense at birth and visual stimulation is extremely important since it has the
most profound effect on the baby’s brain development, especially in the first
144 7 Literacy and Reading in Childhood and Beyond

three years. Exposure to visuals stimulates the related nerve cells, which are not
well connected at this stage (DiPietro, 2000). Rich and varied information from all
the senses helps develop various neural connections and provides the crucial ­impetus
to the development of the brain in the early years. Reading to your infant is the one
activity where you bring multiple sensory experiences together. Holding the book,
touching and smelling the pages, looking at the pictures and listening to the adult
talk about it provide tactile, olfactory, visual and auditory streams of sensations.
Since the nerve cells related to vision are in their early stages of development,
colour pictures with thin lines and insufficient contrast will look blurred to the child.
It is for this reason that bright, high contrast visuals (particularly black and white
ones) with bold lines (not shading) are seen as appropriate for infants and very
young children. Other qualities of books for the very young child include charac-
ters/objects from the child’s familiar world, containing action the child can relate
with, simple single images that are bright and bold, and only a limited number of
words (or no words). There are also ‘board books’ made of thick cardboard that are
tear-resistant and can safely be handed to very young children. However, a book
becomes great for a child only when lovingly read aloud by the adult, involving
plenty of play and interaction. This is somewhat difficult to achieve with portable
digital media as the device might distract or does not lead to the kind of interaction
that is possible with print books where many pages can be seen together.
It is well known that books for children in the preschool and early primary grades
include picture books, texts that are ‘sound-oriented’ (i.e. using repetitive sounds or
onomatopoeia, i.e. words that sound like their meaning), action-oriented stories
with 2–3 characters, rhymes and jingles that are easily recited by children and mate-
rial that introduces readers to the world around them. As children move into primary
grades, the proportion of visuals may progressively decline while that of text
increases. A wide variety of genres is now available for children, from fiction to
poetry to non-fiction. Fantasy has particular value for children, as does humour.
What is important for the adult selecting books for the child is to be able to rec-
ognize merit and the worth of a book (National Centre for Children’s Literature,
2012). Avoid falling into the trap of looking for ‘educative’ books such as primers
that introduce the alphabet or dry facts to be remembered. Such books are produced
in large numbers, often assembled by printers rather than professionals who under-
stand children, because parents think they are ‘useful’ or may help a child get
admission in a school. However, they may be counterproductive for they create an
early impression in the child that books are all about doing something that you have
to rather than encountering an inviting world you can dive into.
In the last few decades, digital media and reading on a screen have become com-
mon at home and school. How far is this helpful for children? Are there any negative
effects? What should parents do with regard to digital media? We address these and
other related questions in the next chapter on ‘Children’s Development in the Digital
Age’.
7.8 Conclusion: Developing a Culture of Reading 145

7.8 Conclusion: Developing a Culture of Reading

It is no exaggeration to assert that the extent to which reading has been absorbed as
a common activity affects the future of a society. While oral cultures have flourished
and advanced humanity over the millennia, we have now reached a point where not
merely literacy but an on-going and lifelong engagement with reading (and all that
follows from it) is crucial for individuals and societies to attain their potential.
Conversely, a lack of engagement in reading might emerge as a disadvantage that
keeps us from developing to our optimum and leaves us behind other nations and
societies on various indices of development.
Reading, especially reading for pleasure, development and sharing, needs to be
seen as an activity that goes beyond the home and school to become part of our lives
in the form of a ‘culture of reading’. It is certainly the case that a vast majority of
our citizens do not have access to libraries and books (though mobile Internet is
placing a vast amount of reading material within reach). However, the area of con-
cern is where the daily demands of life and a general view of reading as somehow
‘uncool’ or ‘geeky’ or ‘study/exam related’ is leading a large proportion of our
educated young to prefer spending their time without much engagement in reading.
The question ‘what are you reading at the moment?’ is not commonly heard.
When people at large do not read beyond fulfilling immediate instrumental needs
(which too may be limited to a small number), the consequences are reflected in the
kind of society we have: easily swayed by divisive issues such as caste, unable to
take rational and contemporary stances on problems such as equity or protecting the
environment, and often found wanting in the core civic values so necessary for soci-
etal advancement. A non-reading population slows the pace at which we are becom-
ing capable of dealing with a globalized tomorrow and is likely to leave millions
stranded as they find themselves out of sync with a rapidly evolving future. Our
hopes of becoming a ‘knowledge society’ and making a transition to a nation on a
steady course to development are likely to be affected deeply by the degree to which
we are able to develop a reading culture. Becoming a society with a reading culture
implies reaching a point where not only are books commonly read by most people
but also discussed widely and used in improving individual and community lives.
For all the reasons mentioned above, promoting reading is commonly advocated;
however, the means by which this may be achieved are often less discussed. We
address this by suggesting a few steps that would help.
As said earlier in the chapter, the process of enhancing access to books for chil-
dren is well begun with most government schools in India now housing small librar-
ies (Mehta, 2016). In some cases, these are also availed by the community. However,
stocking them with appropriate and sufficient material remains a struggle in a con-
text that sees books more as a supply issue, ignoring the qualities that make them
worth supplying in the first place. In most cases, teachers do not take the books out
or encourage children to use them – partially because they do not know what to do
with them and partly due to the fear that they will be damaged. An effort to revive
public libraries is also under way in the country. It remains far too small against the
146 7 Literacy and Reading in Childhood and Beyond

magnitude of the need and must be boosted greatly in order to generate results.
While books can now be accessed on mobile phones this is still in its early stages. A
missing area is in terms of museums and their evolution as hubs to generate the won-
der and curiosity that leads to reading, exploring, learning and experimenting. Of all
the steps needed to generate a reading culture, enhancing access to reading material
is perhaps the easiest. It requires relatively little expenditure from the government,
can involve philanthropies and serve as a business opportunity for industry.
School curricula focus on the attainment of reading skills and the growth of
language-related capabilities over the school years. Early grade reading programmes
being implemented across the country focus on ensuring that children acquire criti-
cal reading skills in primary schools. Such programmes have been run as part of the
government’s Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan or Education for All Campaign (Government
of India, 2016) and the Samagra Shiksha or the Integrated Education Programme
(Government of India, 2018). However, there is also a need to publicize the kind of
reading children and young adults should have done at different points in their lives.
Similarly, if a group of village elders wanted to start reading regularly, what should
be available for them? Various series of book catalogues in different Indian lan-
guages brought out by the National Book Trust, India (www.nbtindia.gov.in/cata-
logues), and many other publishers are essentially a pointer to what a curriculum for
reading could be like. While a set of advocated expectations related to reading does
run the danger of becoming a controlling framework, it might help those starting out
or others (such as teachers or parents) seeking to help readers by making it easier to
select the appropriate material. As greater autonomy is gained in reading, readers
will make choices on their own and overcome any limitation that the advocated
‘curriculum’ might have placed on their evolution.
A major role of schools could be to promote the ‘reading family’ by orienting
parents on what they could do at home. Much as traditions, knowledge and customs
are passed on in families, the culture of reading too could be passed on to younger
generations. As professionals engaged in the development of children, teachers
could share with parents and caregivers the kind of advice and insights suggested in
earlier sections. There could be occasional events in schools where parents/family
members and children take part together in reading-related activities. Sharing with
classmates what one’s family did around books could emerge as a regular activity
that is looked forward to.
The demands of the subjects taught in school leave little time to focus on reading
as an activity deserving of attention by itself. However, it is possible for schools to
promote reading through diverse means and activities. Some that we have found
exciting and effective are reading festivals (one example is Bookaroo, a festival of
children’s literature, www.bookaroo.in), book quizzes, bring-a-parent/grandparent-­
to-­read-for-the-class-day, creatively using notice boards or social media groups,
using special events (such as an eclipse) to generate reading, inviting authors to
interact with children, putting up ‘books of the month’ to draw students’ attention
to them, increasing the library time to enable it to become a hub of reading-related
interactions, and many other activities. It would also help to have books for adults
References 147

on the issue of reading and helping their younger family members to become avid
readers.
The idea of reading community as mentioned here is not about the educated elite
or those in universities. Instead it refers to how we think reading might become a
part of everyone’s everyday life, and beyond the life in school and college. To
understand what a ‘reading culture’ might mean, consider what a musical culture
might be – it would imply that music-related events are a part of our life, through
music festivals, or evening music sessions or ‘baithaks’ at home, informal singing
sessions, music fans, nomadic folk musicians, availability of music teachers and a
high social value conferred to excellence in music. Similarly, India has an active
‘film culture’; it does not need much description to understand what this means. We
know of the kind of efforts people make to see films regularly, be aware of news
related to actors or new releases, talk about them or do impressions of actors, or read
film magazines.
In the case of reading, however, ‘reading culture’ is clearly not so straightfor-
ward. The different spaces and occasions for reading-related interactions among
communities and society are yet to grow. We do not yet get to experience the various
literacies involved in using libraries or visiting art galleries, museums, zoos or
botanical gardens where the reading of information accompanies the wondrous dis-
plays encountered. What is being described here might be termed ‘accessible social
infrastructure’ and there have been instances, as in Ohio, where ‘voters decided to
tax themselves for the privilege of better libraries’ (Klinenberg, 2018). This might
sound somewhat Utopian – a dream we are very far away from. However, the inten-
tion is not to achieve the ideal but a state much better than the one we are in at pres-
ent. Just as India transited within a few years to having numerous shopping malls in
every town big and small, or reduced poverty by half in a few decades, or put a
mobile phone in the hands of a majority of its population, many other nations made
a similar shift in the previous century to having the best libraries and museums
available across the country. Today, these nations rank among the most advanced in
the world.
For our own sake, and for that of our future, this is a transition that must be made.

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