Let’s Talk Babies

One of my very favorite things to do is to curl up somewhere comfy and spend hours lost in the pages of a good book.  For as long as I can remember I have loved reading.  As a little girl my mom used to read to me all the time.  We had shelves and shelves of books to choose from.  When I was able to read on my own I would spend great amounts of time with my nose stuck in a book.  I joined every reading club in school.  I used to love those summer reading lists that the teachers would hand out to get us ready for the next school year.  The library was one of my favorite places to go with my mom.

This love of reading that I developed at a young age resulted from my mother’s own love of reading and her desire to foster a love of reading in her own children.  She encouraged us to read, she challenged us to be better readers by engaging us in discussions about the books we were reading and she made sure we always had access to lots and lots of reading material.  One thing that used to bug me at the time but that I understand now that I am older, was that if she felt like I didn’t know enough about the book and couldn’t tell her enough about it if she asked questions she would make me go back and read it again.  Which was fine if I enjoyed the book, but man did I hate that if I didn’t like the first time around.  I get now that she was just trying make me a better reader and helping me to have better reading comprehension, but boy did it bug me.

As a mom I am embarking on my own quest to foster a love of reading in Maya.  Already I can see the fruits of my labors.

She loves books.  She loves reading by herself, loves sitting with me reading books.  She will choose to read a book over playing with toys almost every time.  At the Science Center here in St. Louis they have a little reading corner.  That is the first place she ran to when we got to the Science Center the other day and she spent half an hour there contently reading their books on dinosaurs and weather, it was adorable.

Everyday, at least once, I’ll realize that she is being very quiet and I look in her room to see her sitting quietly in front of her book shelf reading away.  She used to just flip through the books and look at the pictures, but now that she has started retaining and memorizing some of what I have read to her I will actually catch her “reading” the books too.  As a mom who is also an avid reader this just warms my heart.  To see my daughter already loving books and reading and learning is just so awesome to me.

She even reads to the cats

Reading to your child from the very beginning is so important to their cognitive development.  They learn about language by listening to the stories you read to them.  They will learn things like the alphabet, new words, the meaning and concepts behind the words they hear and, of course, will eventually learn to read as well.  So grab a book and read to your child, it will be the best thing you do all day, I guarantee it.

Care to comment