El enfoque de vulnerabilidad social en relación al estudio del desarrollo

4.3.5.1 Nigel and Leanne

Both Nigel and Leanne were very active during phase four of the intervention. Nigel attended six coaching sessions and Leanne attended nine. They both consistently kept parent diaries which noted the reading they had done with their sons. Both engaged their sons in at least three reading sessions per week. They both implemented most of the strategies that we discussed at coaching sessions. They both discovered new opportunities for reading within their family routines. They both reported that reading had become a positive experience. The following examples illustrate this.

At session three, Nigel shared the notes he had written about reading an article in a locally produced free community magazine about electric powered bikes with Kevin. Nigel reported that initially Kevin was not keen to read the article he had chosen and would have preferred instead to read more from the Geronimo Stilton book, “but as he progressed he became more and more interested. It certainly helped that his older brother became interested too and came to listen.” This developed into a three way conversation where Kevin asked increasingly more difficult and abstract questions of Nigel and Shane in an

attempt to “catch them out.” Both boys were keen to visit the local retailer who stocked these bikes and see them for themselves and Nigel agreed to take them on the weekend. Nigel was very excited about the upcoming “boy’s trip” and the outcome of the reading session. We speculated about why this had been such a successful reading session and Nigel suggested the high level of interest and debate it had generated, the social environment of contributions from all three participants and the promised trip.

In session three,Leanne began the discussion by reflecting on reading with Adam, “Adam and I are actually both enjoying reading. It’s become something for both of us to look forward to, because reading used to just be, ‘Would you

just hurry up and read,’ in my head and now it’s not, it’s actually become better, more fun for everybody. Instead of thinking, ‘We don’t have time tonight because I’ve got three kids,’ suddenly it’s, ‘We do have time, cos this is the time we read.’ So it’s become slotted in properly.”

Leanne noticed the reading that was going on in her household. At session three she described that in one reading session, Adam had been reading a joke book then telling the jokes to his Dad and brothers. “He rattled them off for 20 minutes. I thought, ‘That’s your reading.”’

Leanne brought to session six Adam’s reading material, a book from the Horrid Henry series which she had borrowed from the library. Leanne shared that Adam had taken the book to softball practise. After injuring himself he had to sit and not participate. Adam chose to read the book instead of watching the practise as usual. He also chose to re-start the book with Leanne so she could, “hear the story from the beginning.” Leanne recorded that during the reading, Adam read a number of surprising words in the text fluently, including; ‘wailing,’ ‘squealing,’ shouting,’ ‘daydreaming,’ ‘snapped,’ ‘tension,’ and ‘cornered.’ Leanne

commented, “If he really likes them (Horrid Henry books) I can start buying them for him cos he went to the inorganics (large item rubbish collection) the other week and pulled out these huge books. I had a quick look to make sure they’re not cutting your head off scenarios, and he’s cleared a space in his cupboard for them cos he likes the books.” Leanne was surprised by Adam’s actions and I was surprised by the change in Leanne from someone who saw buying books as a ‘waste of money’ at the beginning of the intervention to someone who was now encouraging her son’s book ownership.

At the end of session six, I asked Leanne, “How are you feeling about what you’re doing in terms of reading with Adam? Are you feeling good about it?” She thoughtfully replied, “They’re enjoying it so it’s giving us that one on one as well. It’s tricky cos it’s one on three but we’re managing. I’ve never had reading as a time scheduled in my life – ever – so, of course, I was just bringing that into the kids’ world… Now they’re bringing reading into my world. Now we make

time for reading and we do that at night… I’ll ask them, ‘Who wants to do their reading?” It’s still a reward for them at the moment. If they go to bed early they don’t get to read and if they go to bed early its cos they’ve been naughty.”

4.3.5.2 Gwen

I met with Gwen nine times for coaching sessions. On three of these visits reading was not discussed. Gwen implemented few of the strategies that we planned and at times appeared to actively block Naomi from reading. At other times Gwen did support Naomi by providing access to books to read and allowing Naomi to engage in reading. However, Gwen never initiated reading with Naomi and only twice listened to her read. During the intervention, she did read aloud to Naomi.

At session two, Gwen recounted the reading efforts of the week which were based on reading emails. She continued, “She’s got an email on her iPod now – which turned into an argument because I took the iPod away as a punishment over forgetting her glasses. So now she wants to read the email but she can’t until later.” While I felt disappointed that Gwen had sabotaged Naomi’s reading I also believed that I had to respect the household dynamics.

Gwen opened the discussion in session three by saying, “Well, I haven’t made much of an effort although seemingly we have done more this week than last week.” I took this as a positive sign and responded by saying, “Well that’s good because it shows that whatever you have done must be working within your family structure.” Gwen did not accept the acknowledgement easily, “I don’t know. It’s just been one of those weeks where Naomi has wanted to do stuff.” Gwen brought up the topic of bedtime reading.

Oh Naomi told me she wants to go to bed early so she can read. She asked if I would read to her for 15 minutes then she will read to herself for 15. So that’s what we did. I don’t know if she read the other book

because it is hard… she tries to trick us into believing she has read things when she hasn’t.

I attempted to normalise this behaviour, “Lots of kids do that.”

In session five, Gwen shared that, “Naomi has been choosing to read. I haven’t actually asked her to read once. She has just done it herself because she has got a bit of a thing going with the book. It’s pretty amazing!” One of the reading opportunities that Naomi had used was to read to her brother at dinner time. I asked Gwen how that had gone, she replied,

I was getting annoyed because they were supposed to be eating dinner. Dominic has been asking me to read at dinner time. It’s a good

distraction for him because he then listens and eats instead of arguing with me. So it is a winning situation, but it annoys me because I can’t get on with other stuff while they eat. So last night I was busy and Naomi was trying to read and eat and I was getting annoyed because she wasn’t really doing either thing well and Dominic was complaining. He says, ‘You read too slow. I want Mummy to read.’ I don’t think that feedback is good for her confidence so I don’t encourage her to read to Dominic.

4.3.5.3 Eve

Throughout the intervention Eve maintained that she did not initiate anything new in her approach or response to Jack regarding reading.