Almost all of us can remember with delight a childhood experience of being read to. I have many such memories of reading with, and alongside, my parents. My favourite book when I was in kindergarten at The King David School was gifted to me by a special teacher. I was so enthralled with Monty Mouse that I insisted on dressing up as a mouse for Purim that year. My mother hastily supplemented this costume with fairy wings and wand when I had a jealous tantrum at seeing my sister’s bejewelled costume.

Reading is essential to developing our intellect but also our creativity, empathy, wonder and humanity. To paraphrase George RR Martin – the reader lives a thousand lives before they die. Those who don’t, live only one.

Parents frequently ask how best to ensure that their children learn to read. With the greatest respect for the wonderful role our parents play as co-educators, my view is that this is not their job. They can leave the technical side of this aspect to the experts – the teachers. What parents must do is ensure that their children understand books and reading as an extension of their familial love. They can designate reading time as special time. They can try to delight in the story by asking probing questions, putting on theatrical voices and, in the spirit of our new Ctrl Alt Del program, model attentiveness by leaving their phone somewhere else while they engage fully in this process.

In The Reading Bug, Australian author Paul Jennings writes of the love a parent shares with their child through reading: “This act of love forms an association between the child and books. The word book brings pleasure. The feel, look and smell of books are forever linked to feelings of warmth, security and love. You have started a lifelong love affair between a child and reading.”

Parents can trust that both the joy for reading and the skill development will be carefully supported through our educational programming. This starts at the very beginning of education where our students are frequently read to. The King David School champions the Science of Language and Reading (SOLAR) model for literacy acquisition. This is a specialised course which covers the linguistic basis for language comprehension. Since incorporating this program and training our staff in its delivery, we have noticed a significant leap in fluency and sophistication of student literacy.

We support our students to foster the lifelong love of reading through specialised library visits, structured book clubs and text study. Our Year 5 students get to experience the pride in becoming published authors as they participate in a full day and evening experience of ‘Write a Book in a Day’ mentored by renowned author and KDS parent, Elliot Perlman. Our Year 6 students immerse into the colour and wonder of their text study of Holes by Louis Sachar through enjoying a full day of engaging activities which enhance their understanding of the text. 

A reading highlight this Wednesday was National Simultaneous Storytime where we joined around 2.5 million Austalians who read The Truck Cat. Additionally, this week, it was a sheer pleasure to join the Year 8s, their parents and teachers as the Drama class performed Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The performances were excellent and then the opportunity in the Q and A that followed, was particularly illuminating, as it allowed us to hear the students describe their learning, process and gradual development of an understanding of the complex language.

From the earliest years, reading should be invested with love. Through our purposeful and sequential programs, we ensure that we gift our students the treasure of developing their appreciation of literature and we hope that this sparks a lifetime passion for broadening their horizons through exposure to others’ stories and ideas.

Shabbat Shalom,
Marc Light