The Salon du livre et de la presse jeunesse en Seine-Saint-Denis is currently being held until December 6, in Montreuil. The opportunity to come back to this very important subject of reading, which concerns many parents.
franceinfo: Why is it so important for children to read? And how do you get them to read?
Claude Halmos: Reading is important because it gives the child great pleasure and which, moreover, helps him to build himself. It helps him develop his vocabulary, but above all, much more deeply, to understand the importance of language, thanks to which we can express what we feel, and share it with others. It allows him to discover things he does not yet know: countries, animals. And therefore to realize the wealth of the world. Which not only gives him happiness, but supports his will to live.
She makes him discover, through the stories he reads, feelings that he has not yet experienced or, on the contrary, realizes that he is not the only one to experience what he is feeling; which is reassuring. He can become aware of important issues (freedom, solidarity …).
And above all, reading is somewhere else, always close at hand to which he can go, when he needs it.
Can screens do the same for a child?
The relationship with screens is radically different. A child, when he reads, is always creative, because he imagines the protagonists of the stories he reads. And the creation he makes of it is always unique: 3 children who read the same story imagine it in 3 different ways. And he is also always active because the fact of imagining the gestures of the characters allows him to remain anchored in his body.
Conversely, in front of a screen, the child is passive because the images fill him: he has “full eyes”, and he has nothing more to imagine. And he is also without a body because he enters so much into the screen through his eyes that he loses consciousness of his body. And he would need, moreover, to always have at his side someone whose physical presence reminds him of reality, and brings him back to his body.
How can you give a child a taste for reading?
This is an important question, but too often it blames parents who do not read, or those who have a taste for reading but cannot pass it on to their children.
In relation to this, you must first know that you cannot cheat with a child: he always feels everything. So if you don’t like reading, you have to tell him: “I was not helped. I regret it, and I wish it were different for you”. And then you can only transmit something if you have fun doing it. So if you don’t have one, you’d better pass it on to someone else, and that’s no big deal.
Children don’t need parents who can do everything. They need parents who can speak the truth to them. And finally, we have to remember that there are a thousand ways to get to reading. So if a child wants to read a catalog, we congratulate him!