Storytime in Eaglehawk

By Lauren Mitchell
Updated November 7 2012 - 3:51am, first published October 31 2010 - 10:02pm
STORIES: Eaglehawk primary school children read a book. Picture: BILL CONROY
STORIES: Eaglehawk primary school children read a book. Picture: BILL CONROY

“NO, no! The adventures first, explanations take such a dreadful time,” wrote Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland. Great advice from a master storyteller, so let me take you into the thick of this week’s adventure: the Eaglehawk Children’s Literature Festival.Consider more than 250 children gathering for one almighty storytime; in the classrooms, on the street corners, under shady trees and outside the businesses of the Borough.I was lucky enough to travel with the Eaglehawk Pre-School students; to carry water bottles and hold hands and help little superheroes manage neck-to-ankle polyester dress ups each time one needed to use the loo.Another great storyteller, Eaglehawk’s-own Annie Stewart, started the festivities with an energetic reading of Lynley Dodd’s Slinky Malinky, while around 50 kids sat silently listening. Yes, it’s an oldie but gee it’s a goodie.Outside Eaglehawk IGA one of the secondary students read us a beauty; Mem Fox’s Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge.“What’s a memory?” asks Wilfred.“Something to make you cry, my boy, something to make you cry.”Ahh, that one gets me every time.The adventure ended with a barbecue, balloons, music and dancing with Hey Dee Ho in Canterbury Gardens.Now, to the explanation…The festival is Eaglehawk’s way of celebrating Children’s Week while promoting the joys of reading and the benefits of early literacy, which according to the experts, cannot be underestimated.La Trobe University children’s literature and literacy lecturer David Beagley says the absolute most important element in kids learning to read and having success in school is having parents who read to them, literally from birth.He says teachers have long known it’s vitally important for children to grow up with books, but recent research proves the fact.An academic study into books and schooling across 27 nations has revealed children who grow up in homes with many books get three years more schooling than children from bookless homes.“What they found was that kids will do better in school and stay longer in school, regardless of their parent’s occupation, class or education,” David says.“And that was the same in rich countries, in poor countries, under Apartheid Africa or in suburban Melbourne.“If you have books at home, kids will do better in schools, it’s as simple as that.”The challenge is to get that message across to all Bendigo parents.Festival organiser and Communities for Children project worker John Jones says sadly, many students will start Prep next year not knowing how to hold or open a book.“So many children start school with very poor experiences with literature,” John says.“You can ask them to show you the title of the book and they don’t know.“It’s not just in Eaglehawk, there’s a wide ranging area where people just don’t have print media in the home.”John says with so much competition for entertainment at home, in some cases, the simple act of reading books has been superseded by video games and DVDs, but if this week’s festival proves one thing, it’s that stories are far from outdated when it comes to captivating a child.David says most children will naturally be drawn to books; however our commercial culture is very anti-book.“There’s such a culture against reading, particularly with the move to e-books,” he says, adding children’s picture books are now available in electronic versions.“To me, the only people arguing in favour of them are the people selling them.“If they’re the same thing as a book, why pay $800 for something that will do the same thing?“Why bother? Why not just watch the TV?“The book’s worked for 600 years as a book, why have it replaced by a computer?“We’ve got to look at the gadget in terms of how it can help us tell stories, not change our stories to fit the gadget.“My concern is that manufactures will get so caught up in the profits from the gadgets – they don’t make much profit from a book, so they don’t promote the books.”If you want proof, just look at any department store catalogue and weigh up the space given to books compared to DVDs.Although David concludes the tactile, nostalgic nature of books will never go out of fashion.He takes a slim, pale blue hardback from the full shelves in his office; his mother’s childhood copy of A.A.Milne’s When We Were Very Young.“That’s my mother’s scribble,” he says, opening the cover to a child’s clumsy lettering.“That’s never going to be replaced by an e-book.”David says the key to get kids reading lies with the parents, and the community.“One of the key things is for the community to have books and value stories,” he says.“For kids to know it’s a normal, everyday thing to read – it’s not a special thing, it’s not a geek thing, it’s important for them to see their parents reading – to see the butcher down the street reading...”Fellow lecturer and Bendigo Regional director of the Children’s Book Council of Australia Sarah Mayer Cox says if parents read one story per day to their child, by the time the child starts Prep, they will have heard more than 1800 stories.“You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see how much more familiar those children will be with a really important and fun part of the school day,” she says.“They will be able to sit and listen for longer, and will be able to discuss more confidently the story they have just heard.“Who wouldn’t want to give their children a head start like that?”Sarah says local schools are working very hard to make sure they are offering the best literature programs possible, however governments needed to do more.“I think the biggest contribution the community can make is to urge politicians to put education at the centre of all their policies and to fund education better,” she says.“The federal government is currently conducting an inquiry into the state of libraries in schools.“Twenty years ago, most schools had a qualified teacher librarian. Their role was to connect students with books and resources, needed for pleasure reading and for educational purposes.“This isn’t the case anymore, and I don’t think many of the community realise this.“Teacher librarians are of vital need, especially in schools where home literacy practices don’t value or support school literacy practices.“We need to make sure too that Bendigo has enough places for children at three and four-year preschools, where so many important literacy practices are laid down.”The Eaglehawk Pre-School kids certainly love a good story. And each of them got to take a new book home as part of the festival.John says it was all about getting books into kids’ hands.“It’s a fun event, it’s not overly expensive to provide and it’s a wonderful opportunity to get kids together and enjoy some literature,” he says.It’s also a great way to connect schools to the wider community.And it’s been so successful, the Supporting Schools to Become Community Hubs initiative will be rolled out in Kangaroo Flat next year.But John says there is still much to do in local communities, for example, he says a child-friendly, well-recourced public library is much-needed in Eaglehawk, as the current library room is open just a few hours a week. But that’s another story.We started with a quote, so let’s end with one too; “If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive,” wrote Barry Lopez.The end to that.laurenm@bendigoadvertiser.com.au


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