It was first days of 3. grade. Primary school education was 5 years at that time. It was time to deepening understanding-explaining studies which is both a baby step and also a giant step of gaining reading habit in Turkish Language course. I entered into the classroom and wrote “There is a me, which is inside of me” on the blackboard. At that course and following days, we tried to understand that sentence. There were followings of these words, sentences, lines...

Reading, gaining reading habit for a student, is a matter today that almost all guardians say that it is not working, not happening.   As knowing notes does not mean that we can play piano, leaning reading and writing does not mean that we will start reading and we will be book worms. In the first periods when reading is learned, there is no doubt that there is an enthusiasm at children for reading. Afterwards, due to wrong approaches of teachers mainly and then wrong approaches of parents, children start to stay away from reading.

In fact, reading habit also takes its part from wrongly operated and practiced education system.  Maybe, it causes to have the biggest lose for our children.  Reading perspective is same both in private and state schools. The subject is degraded to score. Number of pages that you read and number of books, these are artificial, supported by rewards systems good-for-nothing. Every child finds herself/himself in a race to finish pages and books without establishing any bound. At the last years of primary school and during secondary school years, it turns out that you cannot make a child reading book with neither reward nor penalty.

 The process beginning with wrongs firstly for understanding a text and to make an effective reading, keeps our children away from reading step by step by books those are read by the whole classroom and not having right not to like a book and then exams those are made after reading.  A child at the age of 6-7, meeting with linguistic subjects which do not take place even in a curriculum in primary school years, severs all ties with language and meaning while still in concrete thinking period.

Primary school years should be years when we can reach cognitive levels of children. It is required that a child should understand what a child reads from the first moment when a child begins reading and writing in order to provide that a child likes reading.  In many schools, activities to understand what is read which is highly important, are not conducted or some texts that a student cannot establish a tie, are selected. In addition to that, since the texts that are read, are boring and cannot go beyond an activity to search answers for questions, a child is get used to read like a machine and to provide answers automatically like a machine.  I have not met with a child yet who is excited to tell the main idea of a text. Unfortunately, “what is the main idea of a text?” question forms ceiling of all reading comprehension activities. When a child’s relation with reading begins like this, reading comprehension journey does not/cannot continue healthy.

 In addition to that, primary school teacher and/or the ones organizing Turkish language teaching program, prefer to give time and effort for linguistic teaching intensively which has no place in a curriculum that I want to highlight insistently. Since it is easier to degrade Turkish language course to linguistic learning, not enough time is given to comprehension and expression activities. When reading comprehension which is the base to gain reading habit, is not realized, a child does not enjoy reading.

Assume that we do a correct beginning about this subject, it does not end with it. Reading comprehension is the basis of this subject, it is very important what you build on that basis. You are supposed to personalize reading activity according to personal development, attention and character of each child. You are required to observe a child to have feedback related with reading even if it takes a whole day or days, if i may say so, you need to scratch. It is required that a child should know books in a classroom library and should have an idea about activities to be performed about contents of the books.  It is required to respect his/her wish to change a book that a child started to read but did not like and you are supposed to trust.  You are required to do arrangements to remove competition feeling that breaks classroom dynamic. Children should not wonder how many books were read by others or what they read; they should wonder subject of a book. Classroom environment should be arranged in this way by a teacher.

In this content, parents should not compare a child and should not make pressure for reading. The most correct action to be made by parents is to be a role model by reading at home. It is to have a conversation to enjoy meaning of a sentence that they will see in a book or somewhere else.

  Thus, we can have children establishing tie with the meaning what they read, learning to fall in magic of what they read without thinking questions of examination to be made after reading, not racing with others, loving reading.  While sentences arise following one another such as everything should start with understanding a sentence, taking about it, thinking about it, going to a journey in magical lines of a poem, the time should fly, it should leave its taste in minds of our children. A child should know that taste and should learn it. When a child finishes a book, a child should feel what she/he feels when she/he listens to a nice song, watches a nice movie or plays a nice game with friends. A child should travel under the sea, travel the world, go to the moon, be friend with wild animals.

An important issue about this matter is the situation of a book or reading against smart phones, tables, computer games and television those attract attention of a child and cause to spend so much time. Adults should not compare books with those tools, should not act as these are competitors and one should be replaced with another.