Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the motion put forward by the member for Lyons to recognise that 46 per cent of Australians do not have the functional literacy to enable them to undertake more than the very basic tasks in life. I would support very strongly his comments this morning about developing a reading culture within a home in which a parent or caregiver or those who are older read to a child. It is through that process that you acquire an understanding of language and the context of the use of words. You hear the story and then you have the discussions around it. But if 46 per cent of Australians do not have a functional level of literacy then that will be a challenge in many homes. So to some extent we are going to have to be innovative and creative in our thinking as to how we develop that reading culture.

I once learned a salient lesson at a family breakfast that I was invited to. I was watching and saw an incredible activity by a mother who could not read. She got her children to tell her what was written on the packets or the containers within the kitchen and got them talking about it. At another point I saw her use a book and get the kids to tell her the stories so that she had an understanding, but she would question them.

Families, parents and caregivers are really the first point of education for all children, from the conversation that a mother has with her child in the first hours of life right through to those formative years when they go to school—but it does not stop there. It is important that we as adults play a critical role in reading to a child. Reading to your child provides the foundation to learning to read but also the acquisition of the knowledge of English.

English has a total of 550,000 words, but 2,000 words make up 90 per cent of most speech and 400 words make up 65 per cent of most writing. English has 26 letters and only 44 sounds and there are only 70 main spelling combinations. Half the key words are phone—that is, a single basic speech sound—but half are not. In the reading process that is explicit in the way that an adult reads to a child. That hearing is like practising anything that we do. Through that process we encourage the growth of their reading development and their speech and language acquisition but also an understanding of the world around them because it gives them access to information. I feel sad when I see adults who cannot fill in forms, whose functional literacy is affected by the fact that they did not have the opportunity to acquire language and acquire a level of learning that, had they been involved in a family that did reading and read to them, may then have changed the context of their life.

I certainly would support the member for Lyons in urging all members to participate in promoting their annual national reading day in their electorates because it would give them the opportunity to have conversations with people and to develop an awareness of how important reading is in local schools, communities and libraries. Sometimes we are highly visible at functions. For a change, it would not hurt us to be highly visible sitting in a library reading to a small group of kids. It would change the perception that parents have of us and might turn around some of the negativity. Often when we undertake a simple task, we can impact in a way that is far beyond our expectations. The motion of the member for Lyons goes to the very critical issue of the importance of the whole learning pathway: the combination of extension of learning through reading, through expression, through explaining. Enriching the learning environment of the child before they go to school or even out of school time is a very powerful way of embedding in our children practices that will stand them in good stead for the future, both in their employment pathways and in their opportunities for education. I am pleased to support the motion.

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