Children find holiday reading not ‘cool’, give habit wide berth

By STANDARD REPORTER

KENYA: As many other parents, accountant John Musyoka has bought several storybooks for his two primary school children.

Musyoka has been buying the books every time schools close to keep his children, who are in classes four and six, busy during the holiday.

“A fortnight ago when schools closed, I bought six books, three for Class Four level and the rest for Class Six, knowing that by the time the holiday is over, my children would have completed reading them,” he says.

But more than a week later, Musyoka’s children are yet to start reading the books he bought.

“I come home every evening and ask if they have read the books I bought but all they give me are excuses. I do not want to be hard on them because it will not help,” says Musyoka. His wife, a nurse, also left them homework some days ago but the children have not tackled it.

“They just want to play the entire day. I do not know what they were told in school about holiday, but reading is the last thing they want to do,” notes Musyoka.

He is among parents who are finding it increasingly difficult to make their children read over the December holiday.

Most of the children are spending time playing with friends or watching television.

Their parents’ busy working schedules are not helping either, as they cannot supervise them to perform tasks they give them.

Two weeks

“I wish the government had not banned holiday tuition. Some schools used to organise two weeks tuition during this holiday, which would come in handy in helping our children read,” says Florence Achieng, a parent.

Achieng reckons that her primary and secondary school going children will not read during this holiday.

“They have all the reading materials they need, but whenever I come back home, I find them watching TV or playing with their friends. I have told them the importance of reading and it is upon them to follow my advice. I cannot force them to read,” she observes.

Form One pupil Marvin Kamau says he does not read because holiday ‘is time to relax’ and interact with friends.

“We cannot spend the holiday reading yet we were in school for three months working hard. At least we need the one month to rejuvenate ourselves,” says the student at a school in Nairobi.

The Kenyan pupils, however, are not any different from their counterparts in other parts of the world.

In Britain, research shows fewer children are reading on their own outside school. In fact, some of them are too embarrassed to be caught with a book by their peers.

The October research by National Literacy Trust that surveyed 35,000 children from 188 schools found only a quarter of the pupils read on their own.

Novels

Interestingly, the pupils noted their parents did not care if they read, be it novels or schoolwork.

A similar research in 2012 had found that British children are reading fewer novels, comics and magazines.

Researcher Christina Clark noted in the study that young