Excerpts from Mary Gordon's Keynote Address to Reading Circle Leaders at the February 1995 Reading Circle Conference at Frontier College

It is really interesting to me to see how all of you approach literacy with your own particular view. You each bring your own particular skills, and I think that this is the value of your contribution to the literacy team.

You don't have any curriculum constraints like the poor folks in the school system. Your mission is to bring the love of books to children, and you do it through who you are, and that's why it's so important.

The whole issue of literacy in Canada is not so much whether our children will learn to read but if they will choose to read. Because not only are we threatened by the issue of illiteracy, we are threatened by the issue of technology taking over books. I am not anti-technology. I am very excited by technology - but for even the littlest children, in most homes in Canada, the television is on 7 hours a day.

Most pre-school children see more than five hours of T.V. a day - now if you compare that to their exposure to discussion, to laughter, to exchanges with other human beings, to story-telling or story-book reading... it doesn't match up at all. And if you look at what they are watching on T.V.; it's in bits and bites.

Sesame Street which is heralded as a marvellous education program, (and it certainly does capture the imagination and attention of children), presents information and entertainment for children in flashes. So the children who are trained to sit and be entertained like that have difficulty concentrating. The teachers wonder why it's more difficult each year to capture the children's attention.

What you people do, instead of just teaching how to read - you teach why to read. You promote reading to children because it is fun. Clearly, from what you had to say today, it's fun for you - and children learn first and foremost through modelling. They learn by watching who we are and what we do; not just from what we say.

You don't teach kindness. You don't teach morality. You live it and you hope that those exposed to you will "catch" it. And that's what we do. Children are catching the love of reading from you.

Technology has become so advanced that children won't need books to find out things. There will be far more effective ways to get information. But, showing a story when you can both sit together and look, and smell it, and feel it... going to the bathtub with your favourite book... all of these sensory experiences around reading will not be on "CD-ROM". They are person to person things. A lot of technology is person to machine. A lot of reading is head to heart. There is emotional involvement with reading that has nothing to do with information. It has to do with people, and really, we are here because we are all concerned about people.

You have got something you want to share. We certainly know there are many, many children who, because of life's circumstances, don't have an opportunity for a family member to give the sort of support that you are prepared to give.

Another thing that is really neat about you people is that there is no element of judgement. It is so easy for families to be judged in this society because they are not giving their children the kind of key literacy support they need. Well, life is tough for very many families. If you are scrambling to put bread on the table, reading with your pre-schooler and doing homework with your school-age child are not high on your list of things to do.

You definitely meet a very clear need here. Another thing that you do really effectively that you probably don't even credit yourself for, is that you listen to children. Do you realize that most children, in the space of a day, don't get the chance to speak to their teacher. They may get talked at by the teacher.

To have a good learning dynamic, you have to have active involvement with the learner. The lecture method is not an effective method for learning. Unfortunately, so often in our school system, the older the children get, the more we tend to teach by telling.

Why do we do what we do with little children? Why do we do all the rhymes? It's not because they are meaningful. Who cares if Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall? It's not going to affect our lives. But, it does matter that "wall" and "fall" match. When little children have internalized the rhyme...

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the King's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again

...they learn that language has rhythm and cadence. What appeals to them is the sound and the rhythm. All that is highly attractive to little children, before they can understand the real content. In fact, you probably know a lot of rhymes and never thought about what they mean. Look at all the skipping rhymes; they are so ridiculous! But the thing is that they appeal to us due to our basic love of music. Language and music are closely related. Even little babies have an innate love of rhythm. Why do we rock the baby? Language and rhythm will lull the baby.