Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Initially encouraged by my mother, Eileen, I have always been an avid reader, a passion which led me to a career as a journalist and newspaper editor. However, not everyone enjoys reading and, more importantly, not everyone can read. The National Year of Reading is about children learning to read and keen readers finding new sources of inspiration. It is also about supporting reading initiatives while also respecting the oral tradition of storytelling. This year will help people discover and rediscover the magic of books. We, as Australians, will work to become a nation of readers.

Three goals have been identified for the National Year of Reading which will help turn Australia into a nation of readers and encourage a reading culture in every home. These goals are for all Australians to understand the benefits of reading as a life skill and catalyst for wellbeing; to promote a reading culture in every home; and to establish an aspirational goal for families, of parents and caregivers sharing books with their children every day.

Reading improves vocabulary, comprehension and overall literacy. Teachers also recognise students who are readers as better spellers and writers. I am proud to say my 21-year-old daughter, Georgina, is in her fourth and final year of a double arts and secondary teaching degree majoring in English and drama at Charles Sturt University at Wagga Wagga and today began her first week of her professional experience teaching block at Griffith High School. She recognises how important the written and spoken word is in this busy world in which texting abbreviations is, sadly, making an all too prevalent incursion into our literacy and daily lives. Hopefully she and her university colleagues will pass on those valuable, some might say old-fashioned, literacy traits of yesteryear.

It is pleasing to note a study in 2009 reported 72 per cent of children aged between five to 14 years of age reported reading for pleasure outside of school hours during the two school weeks prior to being interviewed. An adult literacy and life skills survey in 2006 found that reading is a favourite activity for about 61 per cent of Australians aged 15 years and over. The survey also found women like reading, with more than 73 per cent of women responding that reading was a favourite activity, compared to only 50 per cent of men. Of the people surveyed, it also found 77 per cent read newspapers, 58 per cent read magazines, and 48 per cent read books at least once a week. However, the survey revealed almost half—46 per cent—of all Australians did not have the minimum reading skills to read a newspaper or a recipe. Furthermore, one in five with a bachelor degree was not literate enough to meet the complex demands of life and work in a knowledge-based economy. The survey highlighted that literacy problems grew with age, and were highest, at 73 per cent, among the 64- to 74-year-old age bracket.

While this age bracket may have the highest literacy problems, we are also facing the growing technology age, and it is becoming difficult to pull children away from television, video games, computers and personal devices. Patricia Greenfield, an American neuropsychologist, studied the impact of technology on learning in 2009. Her study showed that whilst generation Y's love of technology, including television, video games and the internet, is developing impressive visual intelligence, that this is having severe effects on their ability to process information at a deep level. The ability to analyse and reflect is not being developed. As visual intelligence increases, the ability of the young generations to absorb and understand the written word is unfortunately decreasing. In order to develop the skills to reflect and critically think, human minds require sufficient time for reading.

There is something magical about books. Many people often comment that after seeing a film based on a book that it was never as good as what they had imagined whilst reading. Books allow you to get lost in the words and imagine things how you would like them to be. The use of your imagination is an important part of brain development.

In Wagga Wagga, the city's wonderful library is accessible to all residents not only for borrowing books but also for DVDs and magazines, as well as being a welcoming space where people can go in and have a coffee whilst reading their daily newspapers, accessing the free internet or wi-fi services, attending a holiday program or meeting up with friends. The library also runs a thriving book club community, with 55 book clubs, each with 10 members, who meet on a monthly basis and provide feedback. The book club has been a great way for them to meet new people.

The Wagga Wagga City Library runs a number of services to encourage people to read and to make it fun. These services include but are not limited to Storytime held four times a week, with about 200 children attending each week; Baby Bounce, where babies under 12 months of age start on a path to literacy with this learning program using rhyme and song; literacy collections to meet the needs of a growing new migrant community; and the Riverina Regional Mobile Library, which travels throughout the region as well as in the suburbs of Wagga Wagga, ensuring that the library is more accessible to residents than ever before. Reading is a vital part of the everyday, and it is important that we lift our literacy rate by encouraging more people to learn to read and with the fact that they should be able to enjoy it.

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