This is the first of a new series of articles on primary school children, which will describe some of the adventures children meet as they work their way up the school, and some of the ways in which you can help them to make these adventures successful. They are written by ‘Kaiwhakaako’, the young teacher whose article on education appeared in our June issue.

We invite you to send ‘Kaiwhakaako’ (c/o The Editor, Box 2390, Wellington), questions or problems concerning children at primary school. His answers will appear in each issue of Te Ao Hou.

‘Please Miss, Here's Sonny’

Let's think about this five-year-old for a moment, the one you took to school the other day, or sent along with his elder sister (she knocked on the Infant Mistress's door, said ‘Please Miss, this is my little brother Sonny—where's your hanky Sonny’—and took off at full speed to play with the other girls). You have taken care of him since he was born and he has learned to walk and talk, and has built up a list of things which, in a shadowy way, he knows something about; he knows he mustn't play with the fire, tease the baby; he has learnt quite a lot of things by listening, he may know both his names, his address, and how old he is, he may not have seen a fire-engine but he has heard of them.

Now here he is, handed over to a strange lady and thirty or forty other children all coming to look at him and ask him his name—it must be all very frightening. Sonny has come to school to learn to read. I hope you haven't been holding him up—some children still come to school scared out of their wits with stories about the teacher.

Before He Starts

Here are some ways you can help him to learn to read before he comes to school. It helps if he has had some picture book to look at, some simple toys to play with, and if he has had things explained to him. (Does your three or four-year-old ask ‘Why?’ all the time? If he doesn't he ought to.). Another useful thing is to take the new child along to school yourself two or three times before he actually starts; this helps him to get used to the idea that soon he will be going to stay there all day.

Read your children stories, or tell them about what things were like when you were small—or if you haven't got time for this, get one of the other children to get a book from the Infant Mistress to read the small ones (it helps to keep them quiet too). Use Kindergarten of the Air and the Children's Session on the radio, join the Infant Mother's Club or the P.T.A. If you possibly can, take Sonny to a Play Centre—you may find there's one near your home, perhaps one that's just being started, as many are these days.

In the ‘Standards’

After about two years in the Infant Department Sonny will go into Standard One. He has learned to read, is everything going to be plain sailing now?

In the Primer classes and the early Standards nearly all the child's time was spent in learning how to recognize words on a page, learning new words, and reading simple stories. Meanings were simple so that the stories could be read easily, and stories were told in a very few words, the words which any child who has learned English fairly well uses when he speaks—words such as come, little, see, dog, run, and so on.

Now Sonny learned his English (and, I hope, his Maori too) from you and the rest of the family; if your English is not very fluent then he has to learn his correct English somewhere else. Teachers help a little, but his main learning will come from reading and writing

You know, I can't think of any more important thing for a primary school child to do than read widely and well. Every day every one of us has to read something, whether it is for fun, to get information, or to keep ourselves alive! Put it this way—all the arithmetic we use we could learn

in about six months and we would probably never need to learn any more, not for every-day purposes, that is. But the kind of knowledge we get by reading, that goes on forever. History? Read a book. How people live in China? Read a book. How to grow pumpkins? Read a book. How to build a house, bake a cake, travel from Auckland to Wellington? Read a book. To understand more about ourselves and other people? Read books, books, and more books!

Do you see why I think reading is so important? Very well. But to do all these things the school has to have a very carefully worked out programme. Teachers are very conscious of this and all the time they are trying to keep up with new ideas about teaching children to read. At an evening course in Auckland recently, more than eight hundred teachers attended each night.

Every class has an important part to play in the reading programme but in general the upper Standards are trying to do two things. They are trying to keep children's interest in reading high (they have to compete against radio, T.V. and pictures to do this), and they are trying to help children to find out the meaning of what they read.

How to Help

Now, what can you do to help? If you live in town you can make sure that your child is a member of the children's section of the public library. This usually costs a small fee, but borrowing is free. Standard three or even earlier is about the right time for this. Make sure that the children borrow regularly and return their books on time. In the country, enquire from the school about library services.

The National Library Service (God bless them) supply all the schools with an issue of books each year. Some schools allow the children to take these home (please see that they are returned, the school has to pay for lost books), but a book from the school library once every couple of weeks is really not enough for a child in Standard Four or higher. Most children in my class read three or more books in a week! Have a look at the books your children bring home; you will probably find that you can get some fun out of them too.

Time Well Spent

Reading takes time. I know that it is a temptation to get Sonny to go out and chop some more wood, or his sister to go and give the baby its bottle. These jobs are important; children should help in the house. But reading is important too, and I don't think it will do any harm if, after tea, you turn off the radio for half an hour or so and say, ‘Sit down and read a book’. They will be getting something from it, and so will you.

Well, there's my case in favour of reading. As a school teacher I think that learning to read is important, but not half as important as what comes from reading. Reading is a little like eating. You have to vary things a bit—fish and chips is all right now and then, but not every day of the week. A comic may do to fill in half an hour, but comics shouldn't be the only things that your boy or girl reads; they don't let them learn nearly enough about the things they need to know, things reading can tell them.

The school's part was to start your children off in reading; your part is to see that they get the food their minds should have, and don't have to go hungry.

The Minister of Transport, Mr McAlpine, says that he is concerned at the number of Maoris killed on the roads each year.

‘Last year 64 were killed, nearly three times the rate of Europeans on a percentage basis.

‘That is the known number. With European names so common among Maoris, accidents involving Maoris are not necessarily reported to us as such. It's a pretty frightening picture.’

The Maori usually was a skilful driver, as he had proved during the war and as drivers of bulldozers. But let loose on the highway he was in many cases a menace to himself and others. He was too happy-go-lucky and seemed to drive a little more dangerously than other people.

Auckland has now a metropolitan Maori choir.

The Maori Community Centre Trust Board has formed a choral group, the members of which are people with any degree of Maori ancestry.

The move is intended to give Maoris in the city an opportunity to engage in choral activities and to make a contribution to the cultural life of Auckland.

‘Our young people have proved themselves in the light entertainment field, and we feel they can make just as valuable a contribution in the choral field,’ said Mr Kelly Harris, the choirmaster and conductor of the choir.

The trust board has insisted that the choir must not confine its singing to Maori music.