PAIRED READING is an ideal way of improving reading skills among children and young people, according to experts. Paired reading simply means an adult - preferably a parent - or an older child reading with a younger child for 10 minutes every day.
"I have found that when a parent and child work together in this way, the child's reading progress accelerates at twice the normal rate," says Muireann Mairtin, vice principal of St Attracta's Senior School, Meadowbrook, Dublin. "Paired reading is about introducing children to learning in a very pleasurable way. It's a positive technique. If the child fails to read a word, the parent simply says the correct word and the child continues reading. Children are praised for their performances but never criticised for making mistakes," she says.
Paired reading was first introduced in Britain in 1974. Since then over 100 research studies have been undertaken. In one study a group of children with poor reading skills involved in paired reading overtook a group with more advanced skills who had not benefitted from the exercise, according to Mairtin. A further study shows that the average child gains seven months in reading accuracy and nine months in reading comprehension age over a period of eight weeks' paired reading.
Paired reading should be adopted on a whole school basis, Mairtin argues, but it can also work well in individual classes. The method can be used from junior infants up to second level. Initially parents read to very young children. As the child progresses, the parent reads with the child when the child becomes an independent reader, the parent listens to the child.
"The teacher's role is to teach the reading skills," she says, "but the parent helps to develop the reading skills." The books are borrowed by the children from the school.
Problems can occur in sixth class, Mairtin says. By then children are often reluctant to read aloud. "In that case the parent should make other arrangements - they could discuss the book with the child, for example," she says.
It's vital that paired reading involves no punishment or criticism. "An over anxious parent will take the boy out of reading," she says. "The child will become upset and the parent frustrated. It's important to teach children to read for pleasure. Children should be allowed to choose their own books."
A pilot paired reading project was undertaken in Co Longford in 1994. Despite the fact that paired reading clearly works, no State funding is available for similar projects in other areas. Mairtin estimates that it costs £20 per child to introduce a paired reading project - simply the cost of four books.
