The Importance of Reading

Have you heard of the Shelby County Books from Birth program? If you have a young child, you probably have. The program, which is our local branch of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, provides a free book to enrolled children every month from birth until age five. What’s interesting about this program is the positive impact it is having on young children, especially those in our community. A 2011-12 study by Books from Birth, The Urban Child Institute, and Memphis City Schools found that:

[C]hildren who participated in Books from Birth have stronger early childhood reading habits and higher reading readiness scores. The report also indicated that participation in the program increased the amount of time parents spent reading with children, levels of children’s interest in books increased, and parental awareness of children’s reading levels increased as well. (via Shelby County Books from Birth)

The results of an ongoing British study further reveal the importance of reading for children. The British Cohort Study is following the lives of 17,000 people born in the same week in 1970. In a recent article in The Guardian entitled "Reading for fun improves children's brains, study confirms," Dr. Alice Sullivan discussed the results of cognitive tests taken by some study participants. She noted that children who read a certain amount for pleasure scored higher on those tests than children who read less. Read the article here for more information.

These results are encouraging and exciting! Both studies mentioned above reveal (as do others) the importance of reading to young children and encouraging reading for fun in older children. If you have young children, read to them often from an early age- long before they seem ready to listen or participate. If you haven’t already registered your child for Books from Birth, do so here. Any child from birth to age five living in Shelby County can be registered to receive books from this program. If you don’t live in Shelby County, search the Imagination Library website to see if your area is participating in the program.

If your children are older, work with them to find book genres that interest them. Try reading a book series as a family and have family nights to discuss. Then, if the books have been made into movies (i.e., the Harry Potter series), watch the movies as a family. You can also create a reward program to encourage pleasure reading. Set up a chart that rewards your child after he reads two books. Increase the reward as the number of books read (or difficulty of books) increases. It’s never too early to instill a love of reading. Start today!