BY KATE HUNTER
Sometimes I get my 11-year-old son to listen to his little sister’s reading homework. Actually, I do it most nights.
Although I’m a children’s author, I have little patience with children learning to read. It’s just the way I am. When I was five and learning to read myself, it drove me nuts if the kid I was sharing a reader with was slower than me. ‘It says, See Dick and Jane run,’ I’d huff, ‘Can we please turn the page now?’
I absolutely realise the value of reading with children, but I don’t think it needs to be me – as long as someone does it. Bonus if it’s a relative.
Ben is a bookish kid, and part of his homework is to read with a member of his family. That might as well be his little sister, right? Apparently not.
Last week, another mum at my kids’ school was semi-complaining about all the ‘homework’ our little ones get. I laughed and told her I outsource some of it to my other kids. She was shocked.
‘But you read aloud with Ben when he was small, why should Sally miss out on that time with you? And why should Ben have that responsibility. He’s only eleven!’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘He’s the eldest.’
That was a pretty ordinary response, I know, but I was under fire in a way I hadn’t experienced since I revealed I sometimes drop my kids at the Library while I nip into Coles.