Briefly put, here are the 3 main reasons why we start Wee Read in Sunday Mornings at Kids R Us.
1. We believe in the importance and know the transformative power of books in shaping people’s destinies. If time is the most precious gift we can ever give to our children, then I would argue that cultivating in them the love for reading, for books is the second most valuable. As parents, our experience of life is limited and sometimes, what we want to say is better put by somebody else. By cultivating in them the love for reading, we give them the gift of a life without boundaries, a gift that will that will unleash the power within them to do and be anything that they want to. In books, they will find freedom, strength, courage, knowledge, wisdom, dreams and inspiration…all of which will help them live the life that we could only hope and pray for them to live.
2. We believe that there is more to learn in English in books than there is in textbooks. Learners will acquire and learn more English from books – picture books, bridging books, chapter books – than they could possibly do from the best textbooks and best teachers. This will require that they become autonomous learners. Our role as teachers is to know this truth, to embrace it rather than to fight it, to advise strategies and create an environment that nurture curiosity, autonomy and a love for reading books, and to inspire them to confidently go for it.
3. We believe in the unparalleled role of books in helping learners acquire languages. Books facilitate tuning in more than any other medium that I know. You see, only 5% of interpersonal communication is verbal. The whooping 95% is nonverbal, meaning they are codes we learn to decode. So when we tune in, we forget that we’re communicating in a different language. We’re 100% focus on making and conveying meaning. All the filters are down. We suddenly come to realize that we can understand more about what our interlocutor is saying than what our ears can actually hear. And it’s only then that acquiring the language is possible.