Some of the greatest memories of my childhood have to do with the joy I felt from reading. I fondly remember my father buying me those custom made books where they use your name as the main character in the story for my birthday. I was filled with whimsy and wonderment, reading how I saved the day at the end of each story.
I would later get addicted to those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, sometimes excitedly finishing them in a day just so I could get to the ending. After reading it a few different times to change the course of the story, I would beg my parents to buy me another one.
My father was a huge sports fan, so every week in our mailbox would be a fresh new issue of Sports Illustrated. As my reading skills and love for sports both grew, I would look forward to reading the articles about my favorite athletes when my father was done perusing the magazine.
Like many children growing up in the 80s, I was into my toys (Star Wars, G.I. Joe and WWF Figures usually littered my bedroom floor), the newest video game system (I vividly remember the day that Pac-Man came out for Atari), television (Diff’rent Strokes, Facts of Life, What’s Happening, Three’s Company, etc.), and just going outside and taking part of the pure enjoyment of being a kid. Along with all of this, reading and books were a significant part of my young life. The love for books helped shape and mold me into the person I am today.
When I found out I was going to be a father, I made it my mission to make books an important part of my daughter, Amilya’s life as well. I would read “Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?” by Bill Martin Jr. to her mother’s plump belly over and over, knowing that she was inside curiously listening along.
One of my favorite things to do with Amilya when she was a baby was to hold her in my arms and read to her. It amazed me that even as an infant she seems to pay attention and follow along to the story.
According to kidshealth.org when you read to your baby, you are creating the foundation for their love of books and their ability to learn.
Parents Magazine explains that reading to your baby can do such things as teach them about the way we communicate, it builds their listening, memory and vocabulary skills and it introduces concepts like letter, numbers, colors, and shapes to them in an entertaining way. I remember taking a walk with Amilya around our neighborhood when she was barely 2 and I was amazed that she knew that a stop sign was an octagon!
Around the same age of the stop sign incident, I decided that Amilya and I would take part in a challenge that summer by reading 200 books! We live walking distance from our public library, and she has quite a few books at home, so choosing 200 different books for this challenge would not be difficult. By the end of the summer, I could see so many benefits from taking part in our book challenge. Amilya’s vocabulary continued to grow, her attention span was incredible for her age, and I felt like the strong bond we had only grew stronger. Reading a book with your child is an act of learning and love!
Amilya is getting to that age where she is starting to be interested in typical “kid things” of her generation. Han Solo, Pac-Man and Arnold Jackson have been replaced by LOL Dolls, Tik-Tok, RoBlox and whoever the cool YouTuber is at the moment. I feel confident that, like my parents, I helped instill in her the love of reading and books. Hopefully this is something she carries with her for the rest of her life.
We all know how important it is to spend quality time with our children. Why not open up new worlds and experiences for them by sitting down with them and reading a good book or two? If you make a routine out of this, you’ll be amazed by the results.
