The just-six-year-old can now read, really quite well, which means I have had to hide all of the novelty mugs with swear words on them and also stop leaving dirty messages to Mr AMR on the fridge door. (Who knew magnetic letters could be so much fun")
In all seriousness though, I can’t tell you how much joy I get from listening to my daughter read through her school books, even the one about owls. I feel the same excitement for her as I did for myself when I was learning to drive: suddenly a whole new world of experience is opened up. When you can read there’s no limit to where you can go – different times, different countries, different planets. You can meet fascinating people, you can sail on a pirate ship, you can flounce about a tudor court in an uncomfortable dress. I’m quite passionate about reading and how good it is for brains – we all love to be spoon-fed a bit of crap telly, but there’s nothing like getting to work on a good book and plunging yourself completely into a new existence. Great for getting yourself to sleep at night, too, FYI. This sudden improvement in reading has, and I’m sure this is not a coincidence, come at the same time as a huge “screen ban” in our house. Now before everyone goes crazy and says that screen time (as in TVs, iPads, apps, educational games) is fine and you shouldn’t shame it and how would anyone get anything done without screens and yes our parents didn’t have...