Share the JOY of reading with a child

Share the JOY of reading with a child

As the kids head back to school, I’ve been distressed recently hearing several people say variations of the claim that “nobody reads books anymore.” And even more worrying, they often specify “young people” or “kids” as being nonreaders.

Since you’re here reading, on a blog about books, we’ll assume you’re not one of those nobodies. You likely share our love of books as objects, as art, as “comfort food” for the mind. And as conduits for the knowledge and wisdom humankind has accumulated in books, from the days of clay tablets and papyrus scrolls to the estimated more than 2 million new books being published each year.

So I’m calling you to arms in the fight against this anti-literacy mindset and the mental laziness that must afflict those unwilling to read a book now and then.

Do it for the kids you know and love

The sub-title to my book tells you why I’m so passionate about helping people understand the value and competitive advantage that comes from reading: Read ‘Em & Reap: 6 Science-Backed Ways Reading Puts You on the Road to Achieving More and Living Longer. The first six chapters explain the unique benefits of reading books:

1. Reading Reduces Stress
2. Helps You Sleep
3. Improves Your Decision-Making Capacity
4. Makes You a Better Leader
5. Makes You Smarter
6. Helps You Live Longer

Don’t we want our children to grow up with a reading habit that provides these life-long advantages?

That’s why I wrote in a later chapter about ways you can develop your own reading plan, that I hoped my book would inspire people to share their —

“love of deep reading and printed books across generations, the younger the better. If you’re ‘young’ like me, help your kids, grandkids, mayber even grandkids acquire a healthy reading habit.”

I went on to explain the frightening (to me) downside of not helping children become skilled and enthusiastic readers, with this summary of the evolutionary neuroscience of reading:

“Maryanne Wolf [author of Reader Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World] makes this potentially scary point … rooted in the evolution of our species:

‘The act of learning to read added an entirely new circuit to our brains … learning to read deeply and well changed the very structure of that circuit’s connections, which rewired the brain, which transformed that nature of human thought.’ “

It’s critical to understand that these reading circuits are not genetically wired into our brains at birth. Prior to the printing press, only a tiny slice of the human species could read at all. And even after that, it was not until institutionalized education in the last 200 years or so that reading long form texts became widespread. That’s not nearly enough evolutionary time for natural selection to incorporate the reading circuit into our DNA.

Thus, Wolf warns:

‘The reality is that each new reader — that is, each child — must build a wholly new reading circuit.’ “

Don’t let the children you can influence grow up without their vital reading circuit in place!

How can you influence them? It might surprise you, but the research shows actions as simple as showing children your own enthusiasm for books and reading —

“strengthens a child’s interest in learning to read and puts the child on the road to being a more successful reader.”

And we know where that road leads, eh? (Remember my book’s subtitle, … Ways Reading Puts You on the Road to Achieving More and Living Longer.)

The “show your enthusiasm” quote comes from Thirty Million Words: Building a Child’s Brain, by Donna Suskind, M.D. In a section called “Book Sharing” she provides more research and tips for instilling a love of books in children from birth onward, such as:

• reading with a child from the first day of life
• rather than beginning-to-end reading like an adult, encourage the child’s natural curiosity to ask questions about the book’s content and engage in dialogue about the story, characters, or information
• but if the child wants to listen quietly to the story, by all means read it to them
• help develop “print awareness” by pointing to the words as you read
• engage in storytelling and narrative about the book and its content
• as children get older, engage in taking turns elaborating on stories or topics in their books

The lame “nobody reads” excuse

Aside from the distress I mentioned at the outset, I feel deep sorrow for those who resist reading and hide behind some supposed trend that “nobody reads” anymore.

Really?

Then how did Colleen Hoover sell 800,000 copies of her book on the day it was released last year? How did Brandon Sanderson raise over $41 MILLION with a Kickstarter campaign to fund the writing and independent publication of four books this year?

It strains credulity to think book sales continue to grow at a modest, but steady pace, if nobody reads any of those books. And the Colleen Hoover story linked above points out that her readers skew toward a much younger and more culturally diverse group than you might imagine.

I posted a few months ago on LinkedIn about an interesting lesson we might draw from the spikes in book sales during the economic crisis of 2007-09 and the COVID-19 pandemic, shown in this graphic:

 

Those are hundreds of millions of books sold in the U.S. each year.

SOMEBODY is still reading books.

As I wrote in the LinkedIn post,

“Suddenly it dawned on me what was going on in the U.S. during the years when book sales increased dramatically and I spoke the words on the graphic out loud at my desk.

Were we seeking comfort in entertaining fiction? Learning new information and skills to find our way through? Lots of both?”

I’m pretty confident in the “lots of both” answer.

But what about nonreaders?

Advantage: Readers

To keep focusing on the positive, readers will continue to gain ground on those who don’t. The benefits described above cover both personal well-being and career advancement.

“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”

— Mark Twain

Why would anybody refuse to seize those advantages, or go around seeming to boast about their self‑inflicted illiteracy with those idiotic “TL;DR” comments?

So, answer my call to arms for those you care about and help them see why reading remains so important to their future. Especially the kids in your life.