The Importance of Early Reading

As a youngster, my parents were discouraged from helping us read before attending school There were man  thoughts on the subject of early reading or early interest in reading. My first grade teacher claimed that parents often created bad reading habits in their own children and there were many wrong ways to learn to read and only one right way. The right way was her way. She was not alone. Things have changed, books are plentiful and children are now encouraged to read at the first sign of interest. But, even before that, parents are encouraged to read to their children and there are those that read to a child before birth.

My own daughter began reading before age three, she has continued to read and learn. Her SAT and college scores demonstrate that it did her no harm to begin as soon as she could pick out a book that she liked. By the way, her first day in school, was the first day she attended college. She had her own library card before age ten as reading is a way of life in our home. People ask me if my daughter was home-schooled and I say, “No”, she was self schooled. Eventually, we had to build her a library in our home for all of her books.

As a college graduate, she is now able to write her own books and edits books for others. I have written many books and she has edited all of them.

After a parent has been reading to a child for sometime and allowing the child to follow along with the reading, it is almost certain that the young person will begin to ask for certain books and certain type of books. The reading level begins at zero, but the interest level will become very apparent and be high in some areas and not others. Only those books that meet the new readers interest should be offered at first. Trying to make a child read a book that not interesting to them, is not going to work every well, if at all.  Relating the child’s other interests to reading is also important. I am sure most people reading this have had more than one occasion while reading something that was not interesting to them had no idea what they read. I have taken college courses that were required, but held no interest for me and I had a very difficult time getting through the course. I have to admit, a history book usually puts me to sleep. Little people are much like big people and we all develop better doing what we like and what we are interested in.

I am not the only educator with a teaching certificate that now believe this to be true and I am sure you will find some that still may not believe in allowing young people to read at an early age. You might hear some of the old thoughts, but it has been my experience that the best students get that way with good reading habits. If you want to give your students a leg up in education, help them to read.