November 5th, 2009 by El Ed Mom

The message is clear and, thank goodness, frequent: “Help your child become a more successful reader by reading to him OR her from the time your child is born.” Research has shown that it works better than any reading drills, expensive pre-school programs or reading instruction to help a child learn to read. Besides that, it’s cheap and it’s fun for both parent and child. However, there’s more. It’s not enough to just read aloud for a few minutes, kiss the child goodnight and leave the room. You’ve got to stick around a while.

Barbara Kines, author of the wonderful parenting column in this magazine every month once asked her beginning second graders to write about a book that they would recommend for others. Two children wrote about the same book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, which is fortunate for us, because their writing tells us so much about themselves as well as about their book choice.

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