Loving Kids by Reading

When I was a little kid one of my parents always read to me from a picture book before having me say a prayer, kissing me good night, and tucking me in.

When my brother was old enough each of us would get to choose a book for our bedtime stories.

He ALWAYS picked the same one, The Animals of Farmer Jones.

I would have preferred to hear another different story every night besides the one I chose, but that was his preference.

Having our parents read to us made both of us feel loved.

I've mentioned before that scientific studies have shown reading to young children helps their academic abilities when they're older.

But that's not as important as making them feel loved, and reading stories as part of the bedtime ritual certainly helps do that.

Did your parents read to you when you were too young to read?

If they did, what were your favorite bedtime stories?

Bedtime Stories

When I was a kid one of our parents read to us every night at bedtime. My brother and I would each get to choose one book to hear.

I had quite a few Little Golden Books. I remember The Bedtime Story Book, Circus Time, and many others. And, of course, there were fairy tales.

I wanted to hear a different story every night, but my brother always wanted the same on. I had to listen to The Animals of Farmer Jones every single night for several years.

Probably having books read to me helped inspire my love of reading and I've been a bookaholic as long as I can remember.

Back in the 1940s parents were told they shouldn't try to teach their kids to read because they'd do it wrong and the kids would have to unlearn what the parents had taught when they started school.

And reading wasn't taught until first grade.

My first grade teacher was terrible, but I, and some other kids, started second grade reading at fifth grade level.

Years ago I read a scientific study that showed the only thing the best students at the best universities in America had in common was that their parents read to them every day.

Reading to little kids is important!

Lessons for Kids

When I was a kid (longer ago than I want to say) some kids took music lessons and girls might have dancing lessons. Lots of us belonged to the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, or Campfire Girls. Religious classes and activities also took up some time.  There were no organized sports or after school child care and even most of us whose mothers worked outside the home were cared for by relatives or neighbors. Of course we had chores to do, but homework in grade school was mainly studying for tests or finishing something we hadn't done in school and seldom took much time.

All those things only took a few hours a week and once school was out kids were free to go out and play.

Lots of the activities kids participate in today are good for them.  Learning things like how to play an instrument and being physically active in sports will benefit them in the long run.

But it's too bad today's children can't ever play without adult supervision. We used to use our imagination and pretend while we played until we were ten or eleven years old. Now most kids stop that sort of play by the time they're in first grade and only escape into imaginary worlds by playing video games. 

But there's one way kids can still exercise the creative part of their minds; they can read. Once kids can read fluently books can take them anywhere and they're much more likely to become good readers if adults read to them a lot. And even older kids can participate in family times when a book is read aloud and shared by everyone.

So if you have kids please, please, find time to read to them.

More On Teaching Reading

I once read about a study (wish I'd kept the reference) where scientists tried to determine what method of reading instruction worked best. They interviewed top-performing students from the most respected universities in America and, to their surprise, discovered the methods of teaching reading made no difference at all. The students had been taught by many different methods and still did well.

However there was one thing they all had in common. When they were little kids their parents had read to them a lot.

The single most important thing parents can do to help their children become good readers is to spend at least 20 minutes every day reading to them, starting when the kids are tiny tots. It helps to point to each word as it's spoken, but that isn't nearly as important as sharing the experience of the stories and books.

Of course there's no rule saying reading time must be exactly twenty minutes long. If there's only time to squeeze in ten minutes on some days, that's better than nothing. And if children keep begging for more and story time goes on for 40 minutes without conflicting with things like bedtime, that's fine, too. But parents should read to their kids every day until the children are able to read by themselves and no longer interested in being read to.

Some kids who read fluently still enjoy hearing their parents read to them and may like reading out loud to their parents.

And reading to kids should start as early as possible. Although they can't understand the words, most infants enjoy being held and hearing their parents' voices read out loud to them for a few minutes every day.

Even kids with learning disabilities may do better than they would have otherwise if they were read to by their parents when they were young.

Of course it also helps develop reading skills if teachers, older siblings, and child-care providers read to young children, but the parent-child bond is strengthened by sharing that special time and that emotional aspect helps motivate kids to learn to read.

Reading to Kids

I've kept many of the books I had as a child and recently looked through some of the old picture books. Among my favorites were Cheeky Chipmunk and Chatterduck by Helen and Alf Evers, The Pokey Little Puppy by Janette Sebring Lowrey, and Ferdinand by Munro Leaf. How I loved hearing those books read over and over by my parents at bedtime.

It's a good thing I kept them because later I shared them with my preschool and Kindergarten classes as a teacher and read them aloud again as a grandmother.

Years ago I read about a scientific study intended to discover which method of reading instruction worked best. It showed the only thing the highest achieving college students had in common was that they had all been read to frequently as kids. Of course it might also be that those students had been read to a lot because their parents were smart and they had inherited that intelligence, but it certainly can't hurt to read to children.

When I was a child parents were discouraged from trying to teach kids to read because they might do it "wrong" and their children would have to unlearn what the parents had taught them when they reached first grade. My parents followed that recommendation, but I was among a group of kids that entered second grade reading at fifth grade level. All of us had been read to a lot by our parents.

When my daughter was young I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom so I operated a preschool family daycare home. I only spent a few minutes a day doing things like singing The Alphabet Song and showing them how to write their names, and didn't try to teach reading. However I read to the kids a lot and several of them spontaneously began reading on their own.

Reading to young children is a wonderful way for parents and kids to share time together and it can make a big difference in the rest of their lives.