This weekend, we will be attending 4 birthdays. For every friend, we will be gifting books because we think words and books are the greatest of gifts. If you open my child’s closet or look on his bookshelf, you will see 2x more books or puzzles than toys or clothes. From the moment my son was born, we have read to him. Below is the development of book reading time that we did with our son on a daily basis. All books being age appropriate.

Depending on the book, some books take just 2 minutes to read and some can take 15+ minutes to read. Therefore, when we say 5 books, those 5 books might have taken 10 minutes to 1 ½ hours depending on the wording.We would also expand that time by pointing out different colors, emotions via faces or other actions taking place on each page, depending on how entertained our child was when reading…or how much we were entertaining him with the book.

• Birth+ months, read all my "how to" mother books aloud
• Between 2-4 months, we started reading to our son with an average of 3-5 books daily
• 4 months-1 year, an average of 4-8 books a day
• 1 yr old to 18 months, we were reading an average of 5-9 books a day
• Starting with 18 months, 7-12 books a day; that comes about via 2-3 books before nap, 3-6 random books throughout the day and 2-3 books before bedtime 

Please don’t feel overwhelmed with “having” to read to your children. Find you own love and fun with the books. For example: Sometimes I make up my own crazy, really crazy, story while “reading” a book to my son. Then I start laughing so hard at my made up story that I will have tears coming out of my eyes and my son is laughing because he is just enjoying, so much, to be in my lap, reading a book with mama while she laughs so hard and silly.

Yes, it takes a lot of time reading to your child but remember that your child is an investment. Brain stimulation via reading is one of the most important things you can do for your children especially in the most important years. It really is a dedication, and parents have the most important role to play in helping their children become readers and better readers. If you stick with it and are consistent, then your children will become dedicated readers.

I’m blessed to have a mother that has spent a lifetime as a teacher of children specializing in talented and gifted children. I feel so blessed to observe her playing with my son. She says and does things, during play, which I wouldn’t have thought of doing. Some of those ideas and her ideas for what she does with teaching in her classroom will be shared through further posts to come.

Here are a couple of facts for what you can do to help your children do better in school: Coming straight from my mom’s talented program for children:

1. Reading is a skill that gets better with practice
2. Help your child get into the library habit
3. Make reading easy (another post to follow this soon, explaining more)
4. Reading is one of the most inexpensive forms of education
5. It is one of the most inexpensive and easily available forms of entertainment
6. Read aloud to your child

Reading is such a gift that you can give to your child by encouraging them to read.

Read daily to your child and it is NEVER too young to start reading!