By LAWRENCE SPRINGBORG
ONE of the greatest privileges of my parliamentary career was being Queensland’s Health Minister and, as a part of that, meeting thousands of great people who work day to day improving the lives of Queenslanders and to have gained an understanding of their many experiences and challenges.
Challenges which I would never have considered.
One such occasion was talking to a speech pathologist about the interesting breadth of her work. She explained a growing modern challenge was encountering very young children who had poorly developed language and communication skills, because they had never been taught basic reading or language skills by their parents. They had been given an electronic device as a form of distraction or entertainment or just to keep them busy.
With that in the back of my mind I was delighted to recently visit the Inglewood State School, where I had been privileged to be a student. I had been invited to read to students as a part of National Simultaneous Storytime.
Many of us remember with great fondness, our parents and our teachers reading to us. A good storybook was a source of great joy, excitement and anticipation, as was ordering books at school through the book club and waiting eagerly for them to turn up.
In this era of the information superhighway, made up of the internet, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and email, it’s very easy to lose sight of those simple pleasures that we all enjoyed as children and also lose the day-to-day opportunity for basic communication and social interaction which is foundational to building good community and personal relationships, not to mention confidence.
The joy in the eyes and the reactions of the students who participated gave me great encouragement that the simple pleasure of a good storybook, is as relevant today as it was years ago. Dozens of children joined in that day at my old school, and around Australia tens of thousands of others did as well.
National Simultaneous Stortytime is in its 16th year and is an initiative of the Australian Library and Information Association, whose campaign aims to encourage more young Australians to enjoy the pleasure of reading books.
We don’t have to wait until May next year to join in again to encourage the fun of reading among ourselves and our children, its something we can do all the time and the benefits are there for all to see.
