Conversations with my Grandmother

The heavy black Bakelite*, with her old-fashioned finger-dial face, rang cheerfully. No electronic beeps or booms. No flashing buttons or man-made dialogue. Just the classic ring of a phone from years gone by, echoing out of the receiver. I was lost in this nostalgic moment.

There I was back in the old sunroom at 3 Yonga Road. Mum and Dad had scored tickets to the tennis at Kooyong and it was time to explore my Grandparents’ house. The back room had all sorts of surprises for young inquisitive children. Raffle tickets and empty ice-cream containers from bingo; old stamp pads; letters (I later discovered were from my Grandfather’s brother in WW1) sealed inside reused bread bags; and the old Singer sewing machine, drawers spilling over with interesting buttons, threads and implements.

Plonked on the Singer was my grandparents old Bakelite phone with their phone number scribbled on its dial. It didn’t work anymore but it became one of our favourite play accessories.  Phone calls to our Mum and Dad at the tennis (mobile phones weren’t even conceived,) calls to our toyshop or our office and phone calls to our grandmother in the next room. These were conversations that evoked the same magic from pumpkins, magic beans and toadstools.

‘Ring, ring.’

“This is Dot’s Diner. How can I help you?”

“Hi Dot. We’d like to order a ham sandwich with green pickles, a crab-apple jelly sandwich and two glasses of cordial please.”

 “What time shall I expect you?” 

 “We will be arriving in ten minutes.”

 “Would you like the table set with fine china?”

 “Yes please and we’d love Jacko to eat with us too.”

'Click.' The Old Bakelite phone piece gently presses the receiver buttons and engages our conversation. A poorly insulated wall separates us.

Conversations with my grandmother are becoming clear again as the Bakelite rings on.

‘Ring, ring’

“836 3442…Hello Mrs Meagher speaking”

 “Yes. Hello Mrs Meagher. We’d like to invite you to our fairy party.”

“That sounds splendid. When is it?”

 “Today of course!”

 “I’d love to, but I’m not sure I will have time to bake.”

 “That’s o.k. We are eating magic fairy food in the garden.”

“ I’ll put my boots on and see you soon”

“ See you soon Dot.”

Silence as the Bakelite swallows our secret conversation with a smile.

It takes twice as long to call out on the old Bakelite but the eh urrr, eh urrr sound of the finger dial being turned is enjoyable. For that moment I am the little girl at the diner ordering her lunch and the magic fairy planning her party. I am having a conversation with my grandmother.

‘Ring, ring’ the Bakelite cheerfully exclaims as I wait…

* Bakelite phones are the old black hard cased phones from the 50-60’s (see pic). I recently purchased one on EBay because I was feeling nostalgic and it reminded me of my happy childhood as we approach Mother’s Day. Who needs an IPhone when you can have a Bakelite phone?

I Read the Reader (Book Review)

‘Cyclone holidays’ are still upon us and not a room in the house has been excluded. My kids started their assault in the kitchen where paper, pencils and Easter crafts are strewn on the dinner table. They’ve made a pink woolen spider’s web that wraps itself around every chair and door handle and the bedrooms have had every box and trinket upended on the floor. There’s even a plate of pretend spaghetti from the spider web off-cuts. If only my children would sit down quietly and read!

My big challenge for the past term has been listening to two readers a night. As much as my hub gets involved in every aspect of our kids’ lives, he’s often too late for readers or has his course to attend. We have to squeeze in sports training and dinner in the mix too. Find that balance. Seize while the mind is focused.

When I stumbled upon Mem Fox’s Reading Magic: How your child can learn to read before school – and other read-aloud miracles, I was quite relieved to receive some guidance and advice at last.

I may have mentioned before that we have read to our children since they were in cots. According to Fox, if you’ve done this, your children will be able to read before school. Not quite. Our children have a fascination with books, love being read to and are starting to unlock the mysteries of language and reading. However, they are not reading on their own and I believe it’s unfair that Fox assumes reading is such an easy skill to learn if your parents read to you.

Our kids have all the right influences, being read to every night, my love of the English language, bookcases chocked full of books and fun inventive word games. My hub and I are committed to supporting them with their readers and reading. We want them to enjoy this wonderful pastime.

Fox thinks that school readers are detrimental to learner readers, often with poor grammar and boring repetitive text. She believes that we should be reading quality picture books and learning from these. I agree that some readers are mundane but I also think we need to keep the rituals of nighttime reading separate from school reading. I make readers exciting by imagining together what will happen next and encouraging every attempt at a new word. A book in bed is about sharing this close moment together and any learning is a bonus.

Which brings me to my blog title I Read the Reader. It can be read in past or present tense and although the word read is spelt the same, it sounds different. I read (red) the reader, or I read (reed) the reader, or the reader was red. Complicating enough for us and I haven’t even mentioned reed or reid or reyd. Our vowels make so many different sounds. You only need to look at a Thrass Chart* for your head, let alone your child’s to go in a spin.

What did I take from Reading Magic? Fox says that children who have been read to by an adult expect the book to make sense. Agreed. They know if you are making coherent sentences. Children who do not comprehend the words may still be able to read language without knowing what is happening. Fox goes as far as saying we can’t assess children’s reading abilities by reading aloud. How do we know they understand what they are saying?

It’s also important how we read and the intonations in our voices. You should hear my German accent. I make a very good crackly old person’s voice too after reading Roald Dahl’s The Witches to my children recently! Playing games and creating distinct and engaging character voices makes reading fun and inventive.

The first secret of reading, according to Fox, is understanding the print on the page: “The more they see of the printed word, the more they will understand its peculiarities – such as the letter combinations tch, sh, th, ight and words ending in tion.”

We can build our children’s understanding of print by acknowledging everyday print around us on signs, posters, in junk mail etc. The learning is fun and beneficial to the child.

Fox’s second secret is the magic of language. The fun we can have with our language is essential to learning it through its rhymes, songs, jingles and poems. Dr Seuss – rhythm, rhyme and repetition is a great starting point. Green Eggs and Ham and If I had Duck Feet bring such delight to my children’s faces.

The third secret to teaching your child to read, according to Fox, is general knowledge. For example, if your child knows what a dinosaur is, has been to the ballet, visited the War Memorial, or gained knowledge through similar experiences, many words have a familiarity with them and are easier to decipher in print.

Fox believes that poor readers use phonic learning only, do not see the words connecting and do not use the other secrets mentioned above to help them unlock the world of reading. She continues by saying that children need to read efficiently because their memories can’t hold onto the information. The slower children read the worse they will be at reading. Harsh Mrs Fox!

Fox doesn’t hesitate to self promote her own picture books, vast education and accolades and daughter’s exceptional reading ability by age three years. I found this to be the least interesting part of her book.

However, I like Fox’s focus on parents reading aloud to their children and making it fun. I believe that most children will be able to read eventually, but it takes longer for some of them to unravel the language. Even Fox’s Reading Magic cannot guarantee that your child will be able to read before school.

On that note it’s time to get the books out – a stray basketball’s just broken the lounge light!

*Thrass Chart is a Teaching Handwriting Reading and Spelling System

How it works.

English: The alphabet has twenty-six letters, but the English language uses more sounds than this (approx. forty-four discrete sounds (phonemes.) Some of the letters have more than one sound and get combined to make a new sound.

THRASS identifies the forty-four phonemes we use in English and the different graphemes we use to write each one of these phonemes. It relates each grapheme with a key word and identifiable picture. The picture helps the student to read the word and the phoneme for the particular grapheme demonstrated in that word.

E.g. Bed and Bread

Taken from www.acea.org.au