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Children And Parents Are Invited: Some local libraries have schemes which are of great interest to schools. One such scheme in the south-east is the 'Family book evening',27 in which children and parents are invited to the library about twice a term to discuss books. Many children's fiction books are made specially available, and children are allowed to take home as many as they wish. They tell the others about one of them at the next session, and the librarians also talk about books they have recently read. Parents too are asked to read the occasional book and discuss it in the group.
Children learn first and foremost from their parents. In this respect all parents are teachers - and very effective teachers they are. Arguably, children learn more from their parents in the first five years of life than they do from their schools in the next ten. This book is about parents and teachers working together to help children with their learning; more specifically, it is about parents co-operating with teachers over their own children's reading. We have chosen the term PACT (Parents, Children and Teachers) to embody this concept.
In questions like these, common sense and good teaching coincide. They can also be fun, for parents as well as children. More than anything else, a good book is something that parents and children can enjoy together. Teachers have undoubted skills and experience that most parents do not have; parents have the advantage of emotional bonds conducive to learning that schools can never provide to quite the same extent. Thus parents' work complements that of teachers - and children receive the benefit of a partnership between what are, after all, the most important adults in their lives.
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