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“I can teach my child to read, I have lots of spare time,”
“I can teach my child to read, I have lots of spare time,” said no parent of school-aged children ever!
I have an apology to make – for the last 12 months, I have been out of touch with parents of school-aged children. You see, whilst I’ve been happily sailing along the ‘thank goodness my children are now young adults and no longer at school’ waters, I had quite forgotten the reality of those crazy, crazy, school years. I became tied up in my mission to teach every child to read, with your help of course!
Here, I have been strongly suggesting, a commitment of just ten minutes every day, as the answer to teach your child to read. What I had forgotten, was that this window of ten minutes for parents, is often sandwiched between or around, getting dinner sorted; ironing uniforms; emailing the school to explain why the children were late to school again; attending the endless number of compulsory and extremely important parent/teacher information meetings to show that you really do care; grocery shopping; finding lost library books, shoes, hats, lunch boxes; booking and attending, dental, doctor and hairdressing appointments; running children to before and after school activities; organising play dates; helping/doing set homework; purchasing new school shoes/hats because they have disappeared again; and oh, that’s right, dealing with, I mean spending quality time with, partner; then sorting the dog, the cat, the in-laws and acquaintances, all whilst juggling said school children.
What was I thinking??? Of course, finding ten uninterrupted minutes to read every day with your child is nearly impossible!! So how about, I take a gigantic step back, remind myself of those heady days, and can I most humbling suggest, snatching any time at all, would be most appropriate. If you could find just the smallest number of minutes, maybe even just three times a week, that would be awesome.
And I promise I can help in some small way – with the provision of the readers! BORN2READ® has them covered – simple, easy to access, and engaging for both you and your child. Now if only you could find where you’ve put those precious minutes, you really could ‘teach your child to read’! Good luck!
Best wishes,
Katrina.