For several years, I have had the opportunity to read to children at the Stratford Avenue School in Garden City. April generally brings National Library week to local schools. It is always an interesting experience. The school's library, each year, invites local people to help encourage the children to be more involved in reading as an essential part of education. The children are excited when someone from the community visits the library for a reading opportunity.
The children always ask interesting questions and keep the readers very much involved. This year, the librarian and I decided that I would read several pieces from my book -
Columns: Marilyn Monroe to Vietnam and Iraq. The book contains 90 columns which have all appeared in this space over the last 21 years. As always, the fifth-grade children could not have been more attentive.
With 90 columns in the book and basically 40 minutes of time for reading and questions, the time went very fast. I read about chasing a rainbow in my car with two grandchildren; miniature horses being raised by my daughter in Florida; and a private audience with several members of Congress and Pope John Paul II.
There were many questions as I read the pieces just before the children would get up to pick out their own book to read. One youngster asked me why I had decided to write a book? Another asked where he could get the book. Since I had donated the book on Panama and the Columns book to the library, that was an easy question. Interestingly, as I read from the
Columns
book, the book on the Panama Canal was passed around to all the students. The pictures in the book are what really got their attention.
Taking the time to read to a group of children around the age of 10 or 11 was not a chore. In fact, I thoroughly enjoyed the hour with them. Reading is very important in life. And reading to children and grandchildren can be very positive in your life as well as that of the child.
Unfortunately, statistics show that less than 50 percent of fourth- or fifth-graders read for pleasure. And, at the same time, around 69 percent of them watch over 20 hours of television each week. While the decay in family values has contributed to declining scores in reading, the lack of discipline in reading should not be ignored.
While we can blame television, it is only part of the problem. We, parents and grandparents, are the other part of the challenge. We are the ones who have not taken little ones for the library experience. Also, just think about the children who have no one to take them to a library. The television set becomes the babysitter.
There was one other interesting subject raised on my visit - the subject of typing. As I explained that I did not type, and wrote all my columns and even books on yellow legal pads with a pen, the smiles on their faces made me realize that I was old-fashioned. All of them could type with ease on a computer. Beyond the reading it was an education for me.
