Reading Matters! Really!

By Christianne Meneses Jacobs

As an educator and reading specialist, I get to read a lot of research on reading and teaching children to read. I want to share some research findings that I believe are important to keep in mind as our young children grow up and become interested in books.

Some of the research findings are:

Children need to own their own books. They need to build a home library from the time they are little. Children like to feel proud of their books, and love to go back and reread their books whenever they like. This is important because it fosters reading for pleasure.

Children who read for fun, and enjoy reading new books and rereading old favorites do better in school than children who do not read books, and spend too much time with watching television and playing video games.

It is very important to allow children to choose books to read. Whether they are at home, at school or at the public library, children need to be given the freedom to choose books that interest them as this freedom of choice turns into a reading motivator.

Children that have demonstrated higher reading proficiency have acquired this skill from reading a variety of materials, including fiction, nonfiction, picture books and magazines, regardless of language.

As adults, we take reading for granted. But for young children, reading is a learned skill. Let’s guide our children in the right direction and turn them into book lovers.