Good Readers Start Young

Reading to child should be pleasurable Often as children enter school reading becomes a chore that they are required to accomplish. By reading to your child when they are young they associate reading with pleasure. While reading your child gets to snuggle on your lap and receive one-on-one time. When my son started reading he disliked the easy books he had to read. But I reminded him how much he liked the novels that I would read to him every night and that if he wanted to learn how to read novels he had to start by reading simple books. By the end of first grade he was reading novels to himself and enjoying it immensely. We keep a stack of library books next to the phone that we rotate each week. My daughters often bring me a book and request that I read to them.


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Books contain a wealth of information As your child reads a book new worlds are opened up to them. They can learn about Ancient Egypt by reading a story that is set in Egypt or a non-fiction book on the subject. Every time a child reads a story they gain something new. Even if the story has been read numerous times they are still learning about books work and associating words with pictures. The other day we were looking at a picture of an animal and my husband said it was a rhinoceros. My six-year-old son corrected him saying, "It's a triceratops." How did he know? He read it in a book of course.

Books contain words that are not found in everyday speech The conversational vocabulary of most people consists of only 5,000 words. With about another 5,000 words used occasionally. As a child hears new words in books it helps increase their "rare words" vocabulary – an indication for importance of reading to child. There are so many ways to say "big" like "huge, enormous, large, humongous, gigantic, monstrous, vast, spacious, or immense." Yet most people just say "big." It is within a book that children will learn other ways to say "big". A child who has never heard the word "humongous" will never use it and will have a harder time reading it. As a child's listening vocabulary increases so does their speaking, reading, and writing vocabulary.

Children need reading role models Just like parents need to role model the behavior that they want their child to exhibit they need to role model reading. By reading to child and by ourselves we show our children that we value reading. We are not just telling our children that reading is important we are living it. Children typically grow up to exhibit behaviors that they saw in their parents. So if we want our children to be readers we need to read to them. It is especially important for fathers to read with their sons, since reading is often seen as a more feminine activity and shunned by boys. By seeing their dad read and being read to be dad boys realize that reading is important for them too.