Why common Reader?

It’s 9:02am, there’s a flurry of action as my students excitedly rush into the classroom, I have an armful of resources ready for the morning reading lesson & a wonderful parent begins to chat to me in a worried tone.

“I know it’s not a great time but I just quickly wanted to to ask you to help remind Finlay to change his Reader. He brought home the same one as last week & he just doesn’t want to do them with me at the moment. He says it’s boring.” It’s now 9:05am. My students are waiting. I want to sit down with this parent & help flesh out the issues, come up with a plan & educate them all at the same time. But I can’t. “Can we make a time to meet together?” I ask instead. “No, don’t worry, I’ll grab some Readers now & we’ll figure it out” they reply as I am pulled away in the other direction by a bag tripping kerfuffle.

In my time teaching, I remember hundreds of these types of interactions. Chances to help that were whisked away by time pressures. Fortunately there were similarly hundreds of times when I was able to make a meeting to sit & ponder solutions with anxious, concerned or hopeful parents. Reading matters. It is a gift we can give to children which opens up their world to countless opportunities. This is why I felt all too often that I was letting down my parent community by not being able to help more.

What if I had a place to point parents to in those moments of minimal time? What if parents could tell me at our meeting that they have tried a pile of suggestions given by a reliable & educationally designed website? What if a parent realised that reading at home with their child had become their favourite time of the week due to a few little suggestions made by an expert?

Common Reader is a gift to my past teaching self. It’s a gift to all the amazing parents who try their best to give their child everything they need to succeed. It’s a gift to all the children who are on their journey of learning to read.

Everyone needs a pillar to lean on sometimes. Let’s love learning to read & support each other to value the process.