Top children’s authors clash over literacy

Mem Fox and Jackie French have clashed over the perennially charged topic of how to teach children to read.

Authors Mem Fox and Jackie French. Picture: Dylan Coker/John Fotiadis

Celebrated authors Mem Fox and Jackie French have clashed over the perennially charged topic of how to teach children reading, with French taking issue with her colleague’s claims that illiteracy could be stamped out if parents read to their children.

Fox, the author of bestsellers Possum Magic and Where is the Green Sheep?, has faced a backlash over comments she made during a television interview about the importance of reading to children and her dismissal of explicit reading ­instruction as “incredibly boring”.

Cognitive scientists, literacy specialists, speech pathologists and teachers have hit out in ­response, accusing Fox of ­presenting a simplistic view that discounted the science behind reading and undermined the role of teachers.

Her comments have sparked countless online blogs and open letters, shared via social media, and come as policymakers are grappling with declining reading and writing standards across the nation and concerns about the poor literacy level of many school graduates.

French, an equally prolific ­author whose titles include the Diary of a Wombat series, posted on social media in response to comments Fox made on Nine’s Today show late last month.

Having been asked whether she still believed, as she had said in the past, that if every parent read a minimum of three stories a day to their children “we could eliminate illiteracy in one generation”, Fox said: “I do believe that. I was a university lecturer a thousand years ago and I absolutely know that from the research that reading to kids is very, very important for their literacy.”

The response from French, who has written more than 200 books despite being dyslexic, was swift. “I come from a family of ­storytellers and book readers — and dyslexics,” she wrote on ­Twitter. “Sadly having three stories (a day) read to us, plus poems and ballads, didn’t make it easier for any of us to learn to read.”

French told The Australian that she deeply admired Fox, who had “created a generation of book lovers”, but was saddened by her comments. “When Mem started spreading this message about reading to your children it was desperately needed; books used to not be so readily available to kids,” she said. “But there’s now been trials … and we know that some things work a lot, some a bit and some things are truly pernicious.”

French said research had shown explicit phonics instruction, which taught children to sound out the letters and letter patterns that comprise each word, was the most effective way to teach reading.

“If your child has a toothache, you take that child to a dentist. Reading is the same — it’s a job for specialists, for a trained teacher,” she said. “So please read to your children, teach them that books are treasures … but never think it will teach them to read.”

Macquarie University cognit­ive scientist Anne Castles said reading to children from birth helped build vocabulary and broader language skills.

“What the research tells us time and time again is that reading is a learned skill. It’s actually not something that kids absorb like language,” Professor Castles said. “A small proportion of ­children will learn to read spontan­eously even before they start school (but) most children will need to be taught.”

She said the idea that reading to a child was the key to literacy was potentially damaging

Fox did not respond to ­requests for comment.