1. Read to your child.

2. Read to your child.

3. Read to your child.

4. Read to your child.

5. Read to your child.

6. Read to your child.

7. Read to your child.

8. Read to your child.

9. Read to your child.

10. Read to your child.

Think about how your child learned to use language, to talk, to communicate with others in his world.  Did you practice a nightly routine of standing over his crib and phonetically sounding out words?  “Mmm—o--mmm.  Mom.  D—a--d.  Dad.”  No.  You didn’t.

Speech comes to all of us miraculously by the simple joy of being immersed in the rhythmic sounds of language, by people communicating with us and with each other in our presence.  Isn’t it amazing the vocabulary that a child gains in just three years?  As parents, did you teach your toddler her vocabulary?  Did you sit her down nightly and instruct her, drill her, make her practice speaking?  No.  You didn’t.

Let’s transfer a child’s natural progression to speech to how you can help your child become a life-long reader. It’s simple, really.  Read to your child.  Let your child follow the progression of pages turning in a book, discover words written on a page, and the relationship of letters to sounds, sounds to words, words to sentences, sentences to stories and all to the wonderment of reading.

There is nothing better you can do educationally for your child than to read to him, no matter what his or her age.  Being able to read gives a child the freedom to read for pleasure, to read for information, and to read directions in other subjects.  And remember… good readers make good writers.  Good writers make good communicators and good test takers, and they also have the ability to score higher on college and job applications later in life.

Read to your child and with your child.  You’ll be so very glad that you did.