Writing stories for easier reading

Stories for reading in a second language

Many children all over the world start off reading in their own mother togue but quickly switch to a larger national or international language such as Hindi, Indonesian
French or English. Thus the stories need to be simple to read. Yet many stories which are easy to read are also very dull because they are aimed at young children. Most of the health stories so far produced for Africa have been in English and designed for children beginning to read the language at eight, nine or ten. Children at this age need a good story. This has presented writers with quite a challenge. Here are some tips to meet this challenge:

1. Use only very simple words that children use regularly


2. Keep sentences very short and simple.
Here is a long sentence. “When our baby had diarrhoea we gave her the baby a special drink made with one glass of clean water a spoonful of sugar and a pinch of salt to put back the liquid she had lost and fed it to her slowly.”
This can be made much easier of we turn it into six sentences and a picture.
“Our baby had diarrhoea. Children with diarrhoea lose water and salt from their bodies. We needed to put that back. So we made a special drink. The picture shows how we mixed it. We fed it to her slowly spoon by spoon.”

3. If you use long words explain them first. Provided you do not use too many in the same story a few long words such as diarrhoea are not difficult for children once they have learnt to recognise them.

4. Always try to use simple tenses of verbs avoid more complicated ones.
Instead of, “After she had come into the kitchen she knocked over the cooking pot”
Write “She came into the kitchen. She knocked over the cooking pot.”
5. Use direct instead of indirect speech.
Instead of “John told me that his little sister had had an accident and was crying
Write “John said to me, ‘My sister fell down. She is crying’ ”.

6. Use pictures where possible and refer the readers in the picture to the text.

When the mother tongue is used

For younger children health stories are far better told, written and read in their own mother tongue. It brings the problems closer to their own culture and realities and gives them an extra impetus to share them with their families. Follow up activities such as drama and discussions should always take place in the language children are most confident in using.

When writing stories in the mother tongue, still keep the language as simple as possible.