“Adventures in Reading” was the title of a fascinating evening at Dolphin on Monday 21 September. Hosted by Judy, who introduced us to the idea with a personal story of a child losing herself in a book, the guest speaker was Prue Goodwin, Literacy Consultant and doyenne of Primary PGCE courses up and down the land.

This talk, to which the local community as well as Dolphin School was invited, led us into the highways and along the byways of reading. Prue demonstrated how a phrase out of context could mean several things, and how a page of text will create different pictures in everyone’s minds. We were reminded what a complex process reading is, physically, neurologically and psychologically – and asked to transfer our own difficulties with the tasks she set us to the minds of children.

It came as a bit of a shock to some of us, just how hard children have to work to read.

If this was thought-provoking for teachers and parents alike, the crux of her argument was even more so: that there is no such thing as a book which is too easy. Children should be allowed and encouraged to explore books they love, revisiting them whenever they like, and should be allowed much deeper access to picture books throughout their childhood. There is, said Prue, a nexus in the learning process, where the child needs space to pause and hold back from trying to decode words or untangle sentences, and be able to explore the issues raised in books and subtexts of stories.

Prue demonstrated that learning to read is an acquired skill, not innate to humans, and that adults, both parents and teachers, have a vital role to play in teaching all the aspects of it – especially encouraging children to love books and reading. So it is vital for us to be seen to be readers – not necessarily of fiction, but of quality texts.

Prue’s talk took in plenty of extracts from wonderful children’s books. She was as inspiring a storyteller as she was a speaker. At the conclusion of her talk, there was time for questions, but as everyone had been spellbound for over an hour, there was little energy or need for them! Afterwards Prue showed her dedication to her cause by talking to parents for a considerable time.

It was a lively and thoughtful talk, which has given all of us who were there ideas for taking this often difficult but wonderful process of learning to read further – in ourselves as well as our charges.

Kevin Donnelly