Theo Can Read!

I know he is only 6 months old and I am a doting (book) granny so my judgment isn’t impartial, but it’s true: he is en route to being an enthusiastic reader.

It started on his changing mat when he was much younger. Freed from the restrictions of his nappy he kicked, laughed and wanted to look at books. Initially the books that squeaked and rustled were particularly popular. If a book was held in the air above his head he stared at the pictures. The nappy changer had to be sensitive to his concentration span. How long does a naked baby want to focus on one picture? A long time apparently and the dry nappy had to wait while Theo absorbed the contents of the page.  

Now he is happy in an upright position it is possible to share books with him in a more conventional setting. He sits up, snuggles into a warm body and listens and looks as the story unfolds. Like most children he wants the same story repeated many times. Now he knows what is coming when he hears Peepo. Unlike the baby in the book he doesn’t have a tin bath but that’s the joy of books; they introduce other ways of living, other times. Theo doesn’t reject the book because the baby bathes in a different way to him. He understands the conventions of fiction.

A bedtime book is part of his routine. May it continue all his life. One of life’s major pleasures is to get under the duvet at the end of the day, switch on the bedside lamp and open a book. Theo has learned this at 6 months.   Ways With Words relies on a world of book lovers so I have a vested interest in watching the creation of a new reader. It all relies on time. Babies, children, readers all need patience. You can’t rush a child with a book. They will want to stare at each page, hear the same story again and again.  So never mind the slow food movement I am starting the SLOW, SLOW reading movement.  

If everyone makes time for books Ways With Words will continue to flourish.  

Words by the Water, our Cumbrian Literature Festival, runs from 5-14 March at Theatre by the Lake in Keswick. Come and join other book lovers there.