Raising a reader

I'm sure it comes as no surprise that I would like Matthew to become a reader.

There have been lots of articles written about how reading to your children improves behavior and attention and that "reading also strengthens children’s social, emotional, and character development" and even make them "empathetic citizens of the world". And sure, I am a little skeptical of some of the studies done (trying to do Emily Oster proud*) but of course, I love reading so why not have some official sounding reasons to try to pass this on to the little one?

But ultimately, I would say my desire to instill a love of reading in Matthew is far more selfish and self-centered. I like reading (obviously) and I would like Matthew to share this hobby.

And thus I have been reading to him since basically day one. Or at least, day one home from the hospital.**

Now, that very early reading mostly involved me reading out loud what I myself was reading. Everything I had read that stressed the importance of reading to your baby, even a newborn, said what you read was not so important, but just that you were reading to them. I hope the content was not very important because the books I read those first few weeks included:

Working Stiff by Judy Melineck which was a memoir about her time as medical examiner in NYC
Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell about presidential assassinations
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith which is about...well the title says it all, doesn't it?

I didn't give much thought to those titles beyond looking for something I had read before that I had a digital copy of so that I could easily read it on my phone.

I read to him a bit from other books I was reading, but after this I started expanding into actual children's books, thanks to generous gifts from many friends as well as my mom saving my own children's books from when I and my brother were younger. I read a variety of books to him, but it leaned heavily towards Dr. Seuss because I enjoyed them and I have to read them. And he isn't expressing much of an opinion just yet. Most of the reading time was done while he was laying on his activity mat or later in his jumper, so he was hardly paying rapt attention. But still.

As he got a bit older, and you'd think reading would pick, I actually started to dial it back. Not something I was intending but his mobility increased and the idea of sitting in one spot for any length of time was abhorrent. Books with normal paper pages (like 95% of the children's book I had) were in constant danger of having pages ripped out and reading from board books was difficult when they would instantly find their way into his mouth. He has a few soft books, which he's a big fan of, but I can't say the story in them is their main point of attraction. I would still try here and there to read to him, but it wasn't the same as before.

Eventually our collecting of board books, especially lift-the-flap board books, began to grow and the interactive nature of those lift books became more intriguing so I was able to keep his attention a bit longer when reading a book. And books were finally welcomed into the bedtime routine.

But the happiest book moment with him (so far) came when he grabbed a book off his shelf, ran over to me and plopped himself in my lap. Now he wasn't just tolerating me reading to him while he wanted to do something else, but actually wanted me to read to him.

And so, most mornings, I'll read a couple books to him. Sure, they're usually the same books every day but he enjoys them. I try to suggest others but the more successful way to have him branch out is when he pulls a different book off the shelf. Sure, he pulls a different book out cos it was sticking out slightly more. But I find he's slowly warming up to these.

Hopefully this early reading will mean a love of books later. And all of those other benefits wouldn't be terrible either. If he doesn't like books? Well, that's my disappointment to deal with.

If you're curious, these are his current favorites

*Oh, you're saying her name is NOT instantly recognizable? Ridiculous. Anyway, she's written books on pregnancy and early childhood that are all about looking into the various studies done, checking out which ones are junk, which are good but may have some problems and which are sound, and presenting all of the data so that you, oh dear reading, can make an informed decision. So basically, looking into the studies and trying to understand causation vs correlation is something I hope she appreciates.

**Given my hospital stay was a bit longer than initially anticipated, and my emotional energy tapped out at "vaguely staring at a blank wall" for a couple days, I didn't do much reading there.