Raising Reading Children

Reading and reading well, are so important to your child’s success at school and beyond. Reading skills are an excellent predictor of academic success. Learning to read well, with ease and comprehension, enables your child to study any subject, even math. After all a lot of math problems are word problems. 

But in the 21st century, so many other things compete for a child’s attention and priority. Reading isn’t as popular or considered as much fun as computer games, video games, TV shows, movies, or talking on the phone to friends. But once a child has learned to read, and reads for both skill and pleasure, that child is guaranteed a take-along activity that will lift him out of his boredom even without electricity or batteries. Reading also expands a child’s attention span, since a book leaves time for a slowly developing plot. Reading increases logical thinking, since in a book, it takes time to figure out what is coming next, and gives the reader time to anticipate. 

So how can we get reading to compete with all those other fun, beeping, flashing, zooming electronic time users? Experts suggest beginning when your child is a baby. My pediatrician’s office, among many others, puts “reading to your child” on the list of to-dos beginning at 6 months. 

When you read to a baby, you want to use a sturdy board book, or a cloth book. Babies learn through touching, tasting and grabbing as much as they do through sight and sound. Read books that have rhymes. Point to the objects as you say them. Some of our favorite books for babies just have pictures with the appropriate word. This builds language skills as well. Let your baby turn the pages if he can or wants to. Another favorite is a book with pictures of family members, particularly if they live a distance away. Babies like looking at people, and you will get brownie points if baby remembers “Unca Ted” at the next family reunion.