Dr. Michel Fraissinet's talk on Nourishing Reading (19/11/2010)
| Venue | ： | Exhibition Hall, Tsimshatsui Book Centre, Shops B1007-1010, B1/F., Miramar Shopping Centre, 132 Nathan Road, Tsimshatsui. |
| Speaker | ： | Dr. Michel Fraissinet |
| Host | ： | Christa Tam |
| Organiser | ： | Blooming Club |
Review
Dr. Michel Fraissinet's talk on The Nourishing Reading
Our very first event for parents on 19 Nov 2010 with Dr. Michel Fraissinet was a great success and the parents present showed huge appreciation for Dr. Fraissinet for specifically addressing their concerns on their children's development in the 90 minute session. His professional yet warm delivery made one forget totally that Dr. Fraissinet was talking to the enthusiastic parents via two interpreters, his wife Claude and daughter, Lise.
Appropriately, he used Mario Vargas Llosa's comment on winning his Nobel Prize for Literature to set the scene for the evening: "I thought of how it all started…. I saw myself as a five year old child, learning how to read in Bolivia, and how reading, this wonderful, magic thing, had changed and enriched my life. I thought of my mother, a great reader, who never stopped encouraging me…" This summed up perfectly the importance of reading in our children's lives and the importance of support from adults, be it parents, relatives or caregivers.
Key milestones in child development
According to Dr. Fraissinet, as a young human being matures, it will progress through three clear 'spheres' or stages of gaining knowledge. First comes the biological development stage (of motor skills and provision of safe environment) followed by the oral (language) stage where direct communication is established; then comes the written (reading and writing) stage when the ability to write results in long term transmission as the written words are being registered and recorded.
Current research has confirmed that communication and emotion signals are detected at a very early stage; firstly with the building of meaning, then intention detection, then understanding the meaning behind the intention and finally as understanding deepens, language imitation experimentation begins. While these processes are developing, essential contributions to the child's development come from a secure, close relationship provided by the adults close to the child, leading to the mutual understanding that emanates from positive reinforcing comments by adults.
What reading and literature bring during childhood
During the early period of childhood, a child can already discover and learn reading and looking at illustrations with the help and example set by an adult. Telling stories to a child from one year old will help it develop its imagination and at the preschool stage, reading becomes a two way exchange between the child and the adult with more emotion and decoding involved. During the primary school stage, the child deciphers sound and graphics taking time to associate the meaning behind the words thus progressing to the quiet internal reading stage then later on to reading aloud and gaining autonomy as a result.
If the habit of reading is built during childhood, the book becomes a support for thinking and becoming conscious of oneself and the world around us through the characters and their experience, which can help with problem solving. Reading literature stimulates the imagination; the symbols and metaphors are tools for understanding real life situation and will help a child to face his own challenge in life.
The important role of reading in the encounter between child and adult
As the child is a "meaning builder" he very much relies on the adults and environment around him for information; close caregivers become the first natural mediums to introduce oral and written language. With their help, books, which are powerful mirrors on the world, can be introduced to a child at this early age. This will help foster a life long love for learning and reading as, with each book, a child learns new experiences which are essential for mind development, deciphering meaning in their lives, giving them autonomy, adaptability, and encouraging them to question, all of which contribute to their healthy growth and maturity.
Dr. Fraissinet concludes that reading is key because it feeds our mind and simply helps us exist. Humans need interaction to grow and reading is a great activity for interaction with the child if the adult can take the time to make reading a pleasure for both. The quality time of bonding with a child through reading not only provides security but also helps in a child's understanding of himself. This eventually leads to the child helping himself to read and thus interpret the world around him autonomously.
Our heartfelt thank to Dr. Fraissinet for taking his time out from his holiday in Hong Kong to support Blooming Club's mission to help children discover the pleasure of reading. We hope that each parent will be successful in enriching the lives of the children the way Mario Vargas Llosa's mother did.
