Turn over a new leaf by reading with your kids

Reading (and being read to) helps your children understand the world around them, and eases them into school, says Mark Evans, and now one bookshop is helping with age-appropriate reading lists

FOR the children, the long hot summer of ’14 is nearing its end. For the parents, another long school year lies ahead and, with it, attempts to get children to put their playthings aside and get into classroom mode — back to reading, writing, and homework.

It’s not fair to expect children to make the transition from holiday freedom to the rigidity of school so swiftly. It is especially difficult for younger pupils, whose summer holidays seemed to last a lifetime. Plucking them from long sun-drenched days of scabby knees and sweets and seasides is almost an act of cruelty.