My mother or father read to me and my three siblings every single night.  We looked forward to that time before sleep. We took turns picking our favorite books and we immediately settled into our respective bunk beds (because if we didn’t – no reading!) My favorites were Wind in the Willows and Charlotte’s Web.

Before I was five, I surprised my mother by reading the comics in the Sunday paper to her out loud. Without anyone particularly noticing, I had begun connecting the printed words and sounds. We read our favorite stories again and again, until we knew the stories by heart.

I am certain that warm, shared reading in my first years resulted in my reading 4-5 books a week. After a ten-hour day, followed by a walk with my Havanese puppy and my aging bearded collie, we all settle on the back deck, under shady trees, and I’ll read for an hour. This soothes away the stresses of a busy day.

There is no question about the impact that reading with a child has on the child’s brain. 80% of a child’s brain is developed by age 3. Synapses are being formed from the early stages in the womb. The developing fetus is receptive to sounds, the tone of a conversation, music, and the dog barking, and responds to the emotional content. Studies indicate that you cannot start reading to a child too early.  S/he will begin to respond to the sound of a parental voice, to the comfort of the words flowing around.

The National Institute of Health indicated in a recent study that reading to a child while still in the womb can enhance his/her intellectual development, and reduce parental stress. A recent article in The Journal of The American Academy of Pediatrics stated that prenatal stress can be a predictor of certain childhood illnesses. While we cannot quantify the impact of the sense of warmth and sharing and mood created by reading aloud to one’s tummy, we do know that that little developing human is picking up on a myriad of cues.

Reading is the fundamental building block: a child’s ability to read, no matter his/her socio-economic status, will open doorways to any possible future. If h/she can read about it, h/she will see the possibilities and options open in his/her own future. Reading is linked to a child’s future health and ability to succeed, to his/her career opportunities.

It’s never too early to start reading with your child and developing a mutual love of shared reading. And even if you, the parent, cannot read, you can still page a book. You can talk about the pictures, the colors, the actions, and tell the story from the visual clues. You’ll develop the habit of dialogic reading – talking about books, as you share them with your children every day.