Federal Education Minister: Read to children every day
Federal Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger has called for more reading aloud to children in view of the poor reading skills of many primary school pupils. The occasion is this year's nationwide Read Aloud Day.
Tests have shown that every fourth child in Germany has reading problems at the end of elementary school. The consequences are serious, the FDP politician told the German Press Agency. "Because no other basic skill is so decisive for the entire future educational path and therefore also for life."
A recent survey also revealed that in more than a third of families, parents rarely or never read to their one to eight-year-old children. "This has a direct impact on their language development," criticized Stark-Watzinger. Reading to children helps them to learn to read well themselves. "That's why we should read to all children: on National Read Aloud Day or any other day."
The nationwide Read Aloud Day is an initiative in which the weekly newspaper "Die Zeit", the Reading Foundation and the Deutsche Bahn Foundation are involved. Since 2004, the aim has been to highlight the importance of reading aloud every year in November.
Source: www.dpa.com
