The cartoonish face on the screen stretched into a ghoulish smile. Misshapen teeth hung over its receding bottom lip, as it began to squawk, “That’s right. Well done” whilst clapping its claw-like hands. My little girl turned to me with her sweet face clouded and asked, “Is that a girl or a boy, Mummy?” To which I replied, “A girl, I think.” “I don’t like that girl. Let’s watch another video” And, I couldn’t blame her. The face on the screen was so repellent, so un-engaging, whether based in reality or fantasy, that I had no interest in watching it anymore either. 

At this juncture, I should make clear that this was not some inappropriately-chosen horror film aimed at much older children. No, it was the first one of the literacy programme on BBC Bitesize – their educational website. In a bogus attempt to make learning to read more fun, cheap computer animation had got it disastrously wrong – at least for my children. 

 Curiosity had driven me to it. Both children had recently expressed an interest in letters and words and I wanted to see what sort of approach one might take in teaching them more, beyond simply reading lots of books and pointing out the odd word here and there. I suspected (perhaps ignorantly) that whatever was on the BBC might be similar to what they might learn in school – and would therefore be interesting to see in its own right. 

The paucity of this offering, however, was more than demoralising. The content was utterly devoid of context: why should these words be learned rather than others; how would one use them; why were they being presented on a quasi desert island by strange partially human creatures with barely comprehensible voices without any reference to desert islands or  fantastical humanish beings who might live there … ? 

A day later I had the following conversation with my son: “I have a dragon in my home, but it is a very friendly dragon so it does not need to go in a cage. He gives me chocolate that dragon.” “Really?” I replied, “That’s very nice of him.” “Yes. And he’s got some for you too. It’s very delicious.” His imaginary world was littered with reality buoyed up by the magic dust of his own mind. His reality in other words consisted of the stories we read and the places we go to, just waiting to be picked up and played with, depending on what he wants them to do. 

Then it occurred to me that true learning is about creating a certain frame of reference, a certain ‘reality’ which is both fanciful and tangible. They have to be able to experience it, or at least much of it, directly or else it can’t be theirs to internalise and then manipulate at their own will. That’s why children’s authors who bend reality only ever so slightly to allow for wild adventure – Judith Kerr, Quentin Blake, Shirley Hughes, Helen Nicoll (even Meg and Mog go home to have tea on the grass after their journey to the moon, you see) are so wonderful. Such marvels of children’s literature probably do provide the best context for learning to read after all – which in any case is no longer very relevant; my children having temporarily abandoned their interest in words for scooters instead.