by Ifediba Nwokedi

Created on: August 21, 2009   Last Updated: November 25, 2009

This year in England the BBC launched a campaign to raise awareness of how many children cannot read and awaken the value of good old bedtime reading and reignite the joys of good poetry. How can a vital means of communication and form of expression die out so easily in the hearts and minds of our children? Well, many children are unaware that the Internet has just been part of our daily lives for the past 10 to 15years. Hence, they presume that we always had the Internet and in effect chose to predominantly engage with each other on social netwroking sites and the world wide web. The intersubjective experience or reading a book or reading aloud is sadly no more a priority.

It is obvious that without good reading skills we hinder children's creative talents and even more fundamentally their means of communication and access to their internal and external existence.In my view it has a lot to do with detachment and bowing to the technological promises of an easier life and more time. An easier life it is, but more likely less time, as we are sucked into more ways of communicating or rather more ways to avoid truly spending quality time reading, writing and sharing our passions. A life not lived with passion. More and more children skim over their work and resort to quick spell checks but forget that technology can only give you the right answer or spelling if you input the right answer or spelling for a word. Technology is not the culprit but a means to spread our knowledge faster. The problem is our willingness to forget that we must initiate our children to our beginnings as well as learn form the innovations of their generation.

V-tech toys that say the alphabet or recite the book to the children do not mean that human contact and books read to them by their parents are outdated. Rather, reading becomes more important as a base to explore the joys of our technological age. I am not trail blazing a total abstinence from technology but as the old adage goes: everything in moderation; and an addition of mine do not forget the good of your roots. Nevertheless, I am silently reassured by the fact that human nature will always prevail even if it means rebelling.

The Internet does not stop children from developing their reading skills. Instead, an over reliance on the Internet makes the next generation unable to have confidence in their own ability. We only use 5% of our brain and training our children to use the Internet as the ultimate way of gaining knowledge is limiting and hinders the next generation from tapping into the brilliance of their brain.

Reading is a visual, imaginative and auditory function that taps into the whole of our being and senses, which is more than what we see, read or write or hear but what we feel and imagine when we do all of this together. This cannot be achieved just with abridged versions of books on the Internet, v-tech toys that teach children to read in the absence of parental guidance. Why can't children read full texts of Shakespeare in lessons and why have we forgotten the joys we felt when our parents sat down with us to give us time and teach us to read and have fun while we are learning?

Reading skills start long before a child can use a computer and the joys of reading is a passion that parents and guardians can ignite from the age a child asks you to read to them. However, they continue to exercise that passion and use this life-long skill, as a book collector, author or computer scientists is up to them. Let's just make time to read to our children from a young age and ignite the passion to work with their brain and put technology in its rightful second place!

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