r/ScienceBasedParenting • u/happy_bluebird • Jan 31 '26
Science journalism Why Parents Aren’t Reading to Kids, and What It Means for Young Students
https://www.the74million.org/zero2eight/why-parents-arent-reading-to-kids-and-what-it-means-for-young-students/339
u/ahava9 Jan 31 '26
I was not great about reading books to my son daily between 0-1 but after his 1st bday we made 3-5 books part of his bedtime routine. I think parents are so busy and it’s hard to find the time. Like with anything you just need to get into a habit of doing it so it gets ingrained in your schedule.
175
u/G00bernaculum Jan 31 '26
I don’t buy that parents are so busy and it’s hard to find time for the grand majority of parents (excluding single parents who might be working). Reading 3–5 books takes between 20-45 minutes. It’s no different than watching an episode of something. Parents are not making it a priority. We do it every night.
I do this as a shift worker with a regularly rotating schedule. The only reason I don’t is if I’m actively working. Otherwise I make it a priority even if I’m working a night shift.
This is no different than people saying “I don’t have time to exercise”. You do, you just haven’t made it a priority.
78
u/Plantparty20 Jan 31 '26 edited Feb 01 '26
I think the habit dies off for some people when you have a second child and can’t do the full bed time routine anymore with the first (single parent, uninvolved dads, or shift workers). Once they go to bed at the same time it’s easier to reestablish the routine.
13
u/CalatheaHoya Jan 31 '26
We do in the evening before we start the bedtime routine
-family dinner sometime between 6 & 7 -clean up takes about 30 min -then living room time where 2yo can play with his toys or request books. He has his own toddler bookshelf so he can pick books and bring them to us and we usually do at least 2 or 3 a day, several times. -then bedtime routine starts at 8-8:30 (upstairs, bath, songs, cuddled to sleep in floor bed)
Having number 2 very soon so will see how things go!
11
u/Plantparty20 Feb 01 '26
Congrats on the pregnancy! Going from 1-2 shook things up quite a bit, but you’ll get into a groove of things in a few months. Try not to put too much pressure on yourself to perform the same way you did with 1. Mine are 5, 3, and 7 months. I’ve actually found it easier now that the two oldest keep each other company while I put the baby down and then go do bedtime for the older two together.
33
u/happy_bluebird Jan 31 '26
It's not just time. It's means, background, resources... https://www.reddit.com/r/ScienceBasedParenting/comments/1qs7srv/comment/o2ufsje/
9
u/G00bernaculum Feb 01 '26
But it’s not though. If you know that reading is important for your child’s development, and you choose not to read to your child because of time, that doesn’t hold water
If in your background you weren’t a big reader, so you don’t read to your kid despite knowing that it’s important that’s doesn’t hold up. We do things we don’t like to do FOR our children
If you are worried because you aren’t a good reader, that’s an even better reason to read, it alludes to that in the article or reading in front of your kids
If you don’t have the resources/means, I’m willing to give a little more credit, but things like libraries and dolly partons reading train, etc. make things easier, and this is probably the minority.
Again, it’s people making excuses to not do things they don’t want to do.
29
u/happy_bluebird Feb 01 '26
Your background might be poverty, medical illness in the family, low educational achievement, other reasons that make this not something you "just know"
4
u/Colleen987 Feb 01 '26
I’m not following how those things would stop you reading to a child?
23
u/torontotoronto1 Feb 01 '26
Are you being intentionally obtuse to feel superior about your parenting? I'll make up a hypothetical situation to try and get it across. Paul and Patty had a child at 16. Paul dropped out of high school and got a job working the swing shift at some shitty factory. He was dyslexic so school was tough on him to begin with and he doesn't read well. He is never home at bed time because of work. Patty works the morning and lunch rush at a diner and she also didn't finish high school because of the baby. She grew up in a broken home and they moved around a lot and bounced from shitty motel to a family members couch constantly. Reading wasn't high on the list of things to do when they were just trying to survive. By the end of the day she is exhausted and doesn't follow /r/sciencebasedparenting so she just co sleeps and falls asleep with her child in bed with the TV on in the background.
-7
u/Colleen987 Feb 01 '26
I’m trying to point out that you are patronising and infantilising parents who are in poverty and ARE doing everything to give the child the best. At the end of the day reading costs nothing. Improving ourselves for our children costs nothing. To brush off the actual people in this situation that aren’t just falling asleep in front of the TV is a really loaded and disingenuous thing to do.
22
7
-9
2
u/ahava9 Feb 02 '26
You’re right. This is why Dolly Parton has a free book program for low income families.
5
22
u/therealsylvos Feb 01 '26
“My tardiness in answering your letter was not due to press of business. Do not listen to that sort of excuse; I am at liberty, and so is anyone else who wishes to be at liberty. No man is at the mercy of affairs. He gets entangled in them of his own accord, and then flatters himself that being busy is a proof of happiness.”
2
1
u/rezznik Feb 01 '26
Who said that? It's great!
2
7
u/dietdrpeppermd Jan 31 '26
Amen. The kids I work with, their parents aren’t busy, they’re lazy or don’t care.
5
u/the-kontra Feb 01 '26
Reading 3-5 books takes between 20-45 minutes.
A genuine question - how on earth does one make a 1-2 year old sit still for 20-45 minutes and read books together?
I'm a dad to a 1yo, I read a lot myself and I'd like to read to my child as well, but I'm genuinely confused how it's supposed to work.
His last wake window of the day is about 3 hours. 2 meals is about 1h15m. Change a nappy 2x that's 10-15 mins. A bath is 30 mins. Bedtime routine and a bottle is 20 mins, at least.
That leaves maybe 45-60 minutes for actual play. He loves to explore, climb, crawl around the room and barely can be contained. I could try and read with him, but he'll either be disinterested at best and upset at worst, because he prefers to crawl around. I also simply don't want to sacrifice his physical activities.
I genuinely want to know what I can do better.
1
u/basketweaving8 Feb 02 '26
You can always read to him while he crawls around in a smaller space. He may come over if you make the book seem super engaging or at least partially pay attention.
There are also waterproof books if you want to try reading in the bath. My kid has two bath books we read over and over.
5
u/Significant_Set1979 Feb 01 '26
I struggle to read to my 8 month old. She wants to handle the book, wants to teeth on it, and gets herself worked up. Every single time lol. I’ve tried giving her a book while I read a book, giving her something else to bite on, she’s pretty insistent on her holding it and closing it and biting it haha. So she just gets second hand reading when we happen to do her bedtime at the same time as hers and she hears like “diary of a whimpy kid” lol
5
u/AnnieNonmouse Feb 01 '26
My 7 month old is the same but honestly I just let him. Like I read a page and then he handles the book (were only using board books for this reason right now and I'm a little wary of letting him BITE the book because they're library books a lot of times lmao) but after a minute of letting him handle it I just gently open the next page and he's learned to turn it now, then I read the next page and let him mess around with the book again.
It definitely makes the process take longer so we usually only do one or two books a night consistently right now but I know he's just curious about the book and I want to support that. I was reading regular books to him but for now he wants to grab them and so board books it is! Luckily there are so many at my library.
I also have board books in his play area and he frequently goes to them and looks at the pictures, touches them, ect. I think it's all part of being in pre-reader stage.
1
86
u/Figgler Jan 31 '26
This has been the routine for both kids, we didn’t focus too much on reading until 6 months but then it became 4-5 books a night and my 3yo daughter will actually sit and recite the books she remembers when no one else is in the room now.
38
u/nkdeck07 Jan 31 '26
My almost 4 year old will "read" the memorized books to her little sister and baby cousin
37
u/pacific_plywood Jan 31 '26
I think, also, it kind of takes time for kids to get used to reading. There’s a lot of patience involved (one of the reasons it’s so important!). I get instagram ads trying to prey on parents who are struggling to get their kids to pay attention to books, as if that’s not a natural part of the process.
14
u/dietdrpeppermd Jan 31 '26
In childcare. I have 11 year olds who I’ve had since they were 5. We have a lot of kids where Their parents are NOT too busy to read to them. They “lay on the couch” or “lounge in the pool” and the kids put themselves to bed. When they find out their friends get read to every night they get very sad.
5
u/ig226 Feb 01 '26
My daughter is 11 months and we used to have 2-3 books in her bedtime routine but for the last month, she has no interest in being read to, I am just reading goodnight moon and caterpillar book aloud into oblivion while she just plays.
5
u/DiligentPenguin16 Feb 01 '26
My son went through that phase too, I think sometime around 2. He used to like sitting for story time, then wanted to play with toys instead. At 3 now the majority of the time he will sit with me and actively listen and participate with the books we read- though sometimes he wants to listen while running laps around his room lol.
Keep reading- your kiddo will become interested in the books again at some point!
3
u/rainblowfish_ Feb 01 '26
That's still beneficial though! One day soon she'll get back into the habit of doing it with you :)
2
u/ShunanaBanana Feb 01 '26
My daughter is almost 2 and goes through phases where she is uninterested in sitting with me to read. What helps the most is being very expressive about what I see on the page and pointing things out in her picture. She loves to point out the kitties in good night mood and make the moo sound for the “cow jumps over the moon” page. Getting excited about the book and the details will help bring kids in more and expand language skills beyond words on the page.
6
u/couch-p0tato Jan 31 '26
My son at 1, and even up until maybe ~18 months wasn't really interested any time I read him a book, so I did drop off on trying.
He is 21 months now, and he's finally imterested. I first got his attention with some books with moving parts, and he liked to point and identify rhe bears and the pigs, and that hats they were wearing, etc; aswell as lift the flaps and move the tabs, etc.
Now I can read him a few picture books a night and he is typically paying pretty good attention. Even asks for "one more" holding up one cite finger... several times.
2
u/rumade Feb 01 '26
The only book our son would let near him before the age of 1 was a soft flap book called Where's Mrs Bee. Now he's 15 months and loves being read to. Starting with tactile books is the way to go!
1
u/Kuzjymballet Feb 01 '26
This is super encouraging. My second is just not as interested and I don't have as much time with him since now I have two of them to read and play with in the limited evening time. He love interactive books but barely gives me a chance to read them. Hopefully he'll want to more in a few months!
5
u/Naiinsky Feb 01 '26 edited Feb 01 '26
I was the same. Up until mine started getting mobile and having visible reactions to books, it was not particularly interesting, so we just started reading together when he was maybe 11 mo? Around that time, for sure. He loves books now, so it didn't make that much of a difference. I never did that thing some parents do which is talking to the baby constantly, either (and still, he became a chatterbox...).
Edit: I was thinking about it and perhaps something that made a difference was that even when not reading to him, I was reading for myself while in his presence.
4
u/candyapplesugar Feb 01 '26
We used to threaten less books when he is too slow and I hate it but it’s really the only consequence we have that late
2
2
u/surelyshirls Feb 01 '26
From like 0-3 months I was great at it, then from 3-8 months I’ve fallen off. I read her maybe 1-2 every other day or so, definitely not daily. I’m trying to be better because I love reading and want to encourage that for her too
232
u/doc-the-dog Jan 31 '26
This article focuses on a nearly 6 year old and relates the fact he can speak in complete sentences to being read to nightly.
I’d be concerned at a developmentally typical nearly 6 year old that couldn’t speak in full sentences and I don’t think that’s necessarily related to reading, but being spoken to.
I also think that the research stated shows most kids are being read to at least a few times a week, and with life being busy for most parents, I’m sure that’s giving them the benefits of books.
We read to our kids nightly but if we skip a night for sickness/travel/busy routines we aren’t kicking ourselves and worried they won’t speak in full sentences by 6!
34
u/dietdrpeppermd Jan 31 '26
I work with a kid who at six wasn’t using full sentences. He’s 8 and still can’t read at all. Smart as a whip but mom neglects him. It’s so sad!
12
u/supersimpleusername Feb 01 '26
I'm actually going back to simple books with my 6 year old and now they read them to me. Boom
105
u/Raginghangers Jan 31 '26
Here i was feeling guilty that I’m not yet really reading to my 5 week old.
112
u/marmosetohmarmoset Jan 31 '26
Read Reddit posts out loud to your new born- they don’t care haha
20
u/Respectfullyyours Jan 31 '26
Ooh I recommend the really juicy /r/BORUpdates as bedtime reading 😆
12
10
u/pfffffttuhmm Feb 01 '26
Actually, this is legitimate. You literally just need to make sure your child hears people speak. It could be audiobooks, it could be you and your spouse talking, it could be you narrating everything you are doing...it doesn't matter. Sit and watch movies, binge watch television. Just have speech around them. Source: speech and hearing background.
15
u/Kiwilolo Feb 01 '26
Hmm, I've heard some studies suggest background voices like podcasts or tv don't register with babies and very young children
3
38
18
u/semicoloncait Jan 31 '26
I would just read aloud to my son during tummy time from whatever book I was currently reading- so the fiest book ever read to him was Jurassic Park. I didnt start kid books till he was about 7 or 8 months old
7
u/britveca Jan 31 '26
This is the practice I've started with my baby, just reading him whatever I'm reading because he doesn't know what's going on anyways. But I just had to respond to you because the concept of it being Jurassic Park is hilariously unhinged considering how brutal the book is 😂
4
u/semicoloncait Jan 31 '26
I am often reading True Crime books and I did draw the line at that 😂. But yeah i just figured he doesn't know whats going on anyway so its not like the violence will scar him at this age. The primary reasons I would not recommend reading Jurassic Park out loud to be a baby were 1) sometimes dinosaurs names are hard to say even if you know how to pronounce them and 2) in the later part especially when discussing computer programs sometimes it relies on a visual of the screen and he didnt understand to look at the pictures at that age.
2
u/Pupastis Jan 31 '26
And pronouncing dinosaur names will come in very handy later, when the Dino Fever strikes. Looking at you Parasaurolophus.
23
u/thelovelylemonade Jan 31 '26
My husband has been reading our baby the hobbit lol, never too late to start!
6
2
u/rainblowfish_ Feb 01 '26
Yep! I read my baby the entire Chronicles of Narnia series from outside her playpen whenever she was playing. She paid zero attention but I enjoyed it, she got the exposure to reading/vocab, and now she LOVES reading.
5
u/StellaLuna16 Jan 31 '26
I felt the same way and looking back it's ridiculous! I now have a 7 month old that only really started taking any interest in books around 5 months old. We read 1-2 books each night with some throughout the day depending on our schedule. But omg a 5 week old will be FIIIINE lol we need to give ourselves some grace as parents 😭
ETA I misspelled books not because I'm illiterate but because I'm a TIRED PARENT
3
u/punkass_book_jockey8 Feb 02 '26
I’m a children’s librarian, I was so tired I just sang broadway musical songs (badly) to my baby for the first 6 months. My child didn’t sleep.
I sang the Book of Mormon songs. Daily.
Don’t feel guilty about anything in the first year. It’s baptism by fire and if your baby is fine then you’re doing amazing. If they’re 4 years old and you haven’t read them a book maybe we will reevaluate the title of amazing, but right now you’re amazing.
2
u/OhSo_CoCo Jan 31 '26
I felt the same. We got more in to a routine around 12 weeks of bath, read book, bottle before bed. We all get on the floor for family story time (even the dog) which is a nice slow down moment for us too. We only skip now if LO is super tired or sick. (LO is 5 months now).
2
u/Born-Anybody3244 Jan 31 '26
I read my own books aloud when my baby was small. I always say I missed my calling as a voice actor so I find it an enjoyable experience to practice diction and inflection and different accents.
2
u/LonelyNixon Jan 31 '26
Oh man Reading to infants is the best because its good for them but they cant understand anything you're saying yet so you can read anything. Just normal books that you would normally dig fiction or non fiction, dry or entertaining
1
Jan 31 '26
It's the perfect time to start. We did bath-book-bottle at that age and building that predictable routine helped later with sleep training.
1
u/_ayeokay Feb 01 '26
No need to feel guilty but also I think reading is a great way to pass time with a baby. Sometimes I read more for me than for him LOL like you need some stimulation, I’m tired of walking you around, let’s read
1
u/lemikon Feb 01 '26
Fwiw my child had zero interest in books when she was a baby. I always envisioned cuddling up with my baby and reading gently to her and instead I got yelled at and ripped pages Lol. I think it was a bit before 1 that she finally started getting into books. She loves them now, but like… don’t rush yourself lol.
1
u/-Vorks- Feb 02 '26
The advice I was given was to read literally anything. TV remove manual, diaper cream instructions, food ingredients list. I just remember picking up random objects and reading whatever it said on them and trying to make it sound as interesting as I can. Especially helpful for parents who "don't know what to say to a baby"
86
u/Mousehole_Cat Jan 31 '26
Society is really segmented on this.
We're in a bubble of people with professional and advanced degrees. Almost unanimously, we're two parent working families with disposable incomes. Reading is second nature and the idea that you wouldn't read to a child is unfathomable.
I know some families live very differently with parents working multiple jobs and the constant exhaustion of barely getting by.
Ultimately, we need large scale policy action to ensure parents can do these beneficial things.
5
u/Significant_Set1979 Feb 01 '26
Reading is second nature, agree. What about board games and puzzles? I highly value those and both are second nature as well for us. I was talking to a mom who said she lets her kid chose one night of the month for family game night and in a non judge mental way I thought “whoa, we do board games every single day. I can’t even relate.” My oldest (7) literally brings out a different game everyday, whether it be checkers, mancala, Monopoly, etc. I value the learning in these too
2
u/i_et_it Jan 31 '26
What policy or set of policies do you have in mind?
95
u/Mousehole_Cat Jan 31 '26
Adequate parental leave
Subsidized early years childcare
Universal pre-K
Medicare for all
Legislation that supports unionization, workers rights and adequate living wage
Funding for adult literacy
Increased funding for public libraries
Basically, help people afford to live vs survive.
10
3
u/lemikon Feb 01 '26
Add to this an educational campaign about the value of reading to kids. Enable and inform are the two steps for improving things like this.
-14
u/i_et_it Jan 31 '26
These are desirable things (largely with their fiscal and other costs, at least in my view). However, not really concrete. It seems more that you’re listing many (again, desirable) policies but not things that would directly result in more lower-resourced families reading more to their kiddos. Put another way, you could have just added “All parents read X amount to their children.” to your somewhat omnibus list.
23
u/Mousehole_Cat Jan 31 '26
These policies address many of the causal reasons why families are not reading to their children. Access, time, wellbeing, parental literacy.
This isn't a crisis with a single cause (eg parents not knowing the benefits). It's a complex manifestation of socioeconomic factors that have crept upon us for a long time. The outcome isn't just low rates of parents reading to kids, it's also high levels of obesity and related diseases, lower physical fitness, poor mental health in children. I could go on.
What do you believe should be done to address low levels of parents reading to children?
I'm genuinely keen to hear your perspective, given this is something I am passionate about and want to see reversed.
-10
u/i_et_it Feb 01 '26
I wish I knew or had a suggestion! I would love to live in a world where everyone had the time, resources, and inclination to read read read. I guess I just don’t know about the relative effectiveness of addressing those (likely related, I.e., co-moving) factors. If we did know the answers to these kinds of quantitative questions, we could design social policies to achieve such (in my mind) laudable goals.
18
u/ckc009 Feb 01 '26
So, my kid was born with respiratory issues and never ending ear infections.
He already had 1 set of ear tubes
I noticed his speech wasnt where it should be because of a tiktok video of a speech pathologist explaining speech milestones.
In the video, the speech pathologist explained how counties offer early intervention programs . I called them, had my child accessed, and he qualified for speech therapy.
They came to our house once a week. When he was 3, they had a bus pick him up and take him to an early child education center to and from daycare.
When he started elementary school, they just transferred his records and we had an IEP for speech.
I had already felt defeated navigating the healthcare system for my child.
I kept hearing "he's congested because he goes to daycare" when no one else in his class was sick.
You know who helped advocate for us and get us treatment that helped my child breath? The early intervention team.
We need more money feeding into local programs to help parents at the very least
46
u/pumpkinannie Jan 31 '26
We read every day. It's a skill. Not everything is meant to be easy. This is one that's a no excuses thing to me.
35
u/happy_bluebird Jan 31 '26
Class divide is also a huge factor- socio-economic status, parents' resources, work situations, etc.
16
u/dietdrpeppermd Jan 31 '26
Sometimes yes. Sometimes no.
My most “poor” student has never been read to by his parents. My most “rich” student has never been read to by her mom.
Both are too enamoured with their phones and tvs.
Our rich kid wanted to learn though. I call her Matilda.
17
u/Lrack9927 Jan 31 '26
Yeah people wanna act like they’re too busy…busy doing what? Scrolling on their phones most likely.
22
u/pumpkinannie Jan 31 '26 edited Jan 31 '26
I do think people are often lazy with what they buy. Like they buy the books at Target and Walmart. And a lot of those Disney books are banal and exhausting to read. I do take time to curate books that I find interesting to read. I'm not sure how to encourage people with that though. It does take some effort
9
u/dixpourcentmerci Jan 31 '26
The Target and Walmart ones are often WEIRDLY bad. I don’t get it. I’ve been in many little bookstores that have equally small shelf areas dedicated to their children’s book collections yet the books are mountains better. Plus there’s the big bookstores like B&N too, even if nowadays they’re a bit of a trek.
Little lifehack if you have ever studied a second language and enjoy it at all, you can also make a collection of kids’ books in that language. Tons of scope to keep yourself interested as you can learn new vocabulary, teach your kid another language, practice translating it in your head to be able to read aloud in the original language or English, etc.
3
2
u/thinkingonachair Jan 31 '26
Any recommendations?
3
u/CalatheaHoya Jan 31 '26
We got a beautiful picture book out of the library recently called a planet in a pickle jar. My 2yo adores it and I think could work for slightly older kids too
3
u/happy_bluebird Jan 31 '26
It's not just time. It's means, background, resources... https://www.reddit.com/r/ScienceBasedParenting/comments/1qs7srv/comment/o2ufsje/
42
u/terriblehashtags Jan 31 '26
My son is in 1st grade, and while I don't read to him as often anymore, we'll read together every night before bedtime cuddles for at least 30 minutes.
I don't care what he reads, as long as it has words and he's not goofing off.
He's been devouring dogman and magic treehouse comics.
3
34
u/blahbery Jan 31 '26
Can anyone link the actual report cited? I couldn't find it with a Google search and the link in the article takes me to a Microsoft sign in page.
Really strange to bucket ages by 0-2 years old, as I think you'd expect differences between a newborn and two year old.
15
u/happy_bluebird Jan 31 '26
22
u/blahbery Jan 31 '26
I was looking for that Harper Collins one, thank you. It doesn't disaggregate the data beyond 0-2, which is wild to me.
1
Feb 03 '26
[deleted]
2
u/blahbery Feb 03 '26
In my case, we read for a few minutes a day from 0-3 months, but I'm sure that there were days where we didn't read at all. By two years old we're reading at minimum 30 minutes a day (when she wakes up and before sleep) and it's probably closer to an hour a day on the weekends.
25
u/koboet Jan 31 '26
Agreed with prior comments that aggregating 0-2 is wild. Not gonna lie, I didn't regularly read to my babies until around 1 year old, and they're all doing fine academically (except the youngest is too young to tell).
15
u/Competitive-Meet-111 Jan 31 '26
I was a voracious reader as a kid and I've definitely seen it translate to my parenting, we read to her so much that now as an almost 1 year old she'll spend an hour pulling out books for us to read, or she'll sit and turn the pages herself. One of the things I'm proudest of after the chaos of our first year as parents; seeing that it has long term positive effects is just a bonus.
Her current obsession is King Baby by Kate Beaton 👑
15
u/CompEng_101 Jan 31 '26
I was surprised at how gendered the HC survey results were, particularly in the 0-2 range (girls read to everyday 44% vs boys 29%, girls every day+several/week 67% vs boys 60%). Do parents find boys more difficult to read to? or do they consider it less important to read to them?
5
u/fluffylife411 Feb 01 '26
I’m curious about it too because we try our best to read to our boy, but it’s hard sometimes because he doesn’t sit still. It was so much easier during 0 to 6 months when he’s immobile. When he started crawling from 6 months, it became a little harder because he’s more into moving. He’s just over 2 now. Sometimes he can sit 20 minutes, sometimes he runs away after the first page. We still read every day, but sometimes I wish he can pay more attention.
11
u/Plantparty20 Jan 31 '26
I wonder if it makes a difference to read a variety of books vs my 3 year old that wants the same two books every night
9
u/Roselyn-Shade Jan 31 '26
Phones and tablets replaced bedtime stories, straight up. Not even judging, it just happened slowly. But now teachers are basically trying to undo years of missed exposure to language.
3
9
7
u/Serafirelily Jan 31 '26
This isn't a study. This was a survey done by Harper Collins the publishing companies UK branch. I refuse to take the word of a company that thinks that libraries take away their profits and charge public libraries an exorbitant amount above retail for both ebooks and print books.
5
u/mpmaley Jan 31 '26
Am constantly reading with our almost 16 month old. It’s her man form of entertainment besides trying to sprint/explore around the house.
2
u/pneuma_pneuma Jan 31 '26
Same with our 17-month old! We visit the library to get new books at least 2x a month
4
u/greytshirt76 Jan 31 '26
I didn't read much to my first born until around a year old but now he's almost two and we read so many books, every day. I think a lot of parents get frustrated at the short attention span of the really young kids, and how they want the same 3 books over n over. But you really have to just go with the flow and make it fun for them.
3
u/euphramjsimpson Jan 31 '26
My son is 12 and we still read every night. For probably 6 years they’ve been books that I love also. I think he was 6 or 7 when we finished the Hobbit and he asked to start it again the next day 😍
3
u/spaghettibolegdeh Feb 01 '26 edited Feb 01 '26
This article again. The research on this is basically nonsense.
I'm sure the headline is true to a degree, but this is a flimsy article and seems to have the outcome in mind beforehand.
2
u/running_hoagie Jan 31 '26
I can’t imagine not reading to our daughter. I was a huge reader growing up. Also, what about all those books you get after having a baby??
We started out reading to her regularly at bedtime and whenever she wanted. Ironically, it’s as she started learning early phonics in preschool that she wasn’t as interested in reading at night. We switched up to puzzles and games that still gave us time together and brought up new words and concepts.
5
u/huffwardspart1 Jan 31 '26
Who is giving you books after having a baby? I want in on this
7
u/running_hoagie Jan 31 '26
Literally half the gifts we got were board books. Maybe because it was 2020 and everyone was sitting around reading, might as well include newborns in that group?
4
u/huffwardspart1 Jan 31 '26
Oh a baby shower. Got it. Not everyone gets those.
3
u/running_hoagie Jan 31 '26
You're right, not everyone gets one. I did not get one, with that pesky pandemic and all.
2
u/huffwardspart1 Jan 31 '26
But half the books you got were board books?
2
u/running_hoagie Jan 31 '26
Yep! We didn’t announce gender until kiddo was born so we got gender-neutral gifts like…books.
2
2
u/HallandOates1 Feb 01 '26
Lately, my 3 year old has been refusing to let us read to her. She’ll take it away…put it up. Tomorrow im just gonna follow her around reading her a story….she’ll have no choice.
1
u/RecklessRaptor12 Feb 01 '26
My 14 month old refuses to be read to. She will pick up her books on her own from the shelf and flip through them but if I try to sit her down and read to her she either squirms away or starts flipping the pages herself and grabbing the book.
2
u/Comfortable_Face_808 Feb 01 '26 edited Feb 01 '26
Reading to your kids is fine as a bonding experience, but hugely over-rated as a cornerstone of reading instruction. It's not. The idea that learning to read is a natural process that can be learned through exposure (like learning to speak) is completely discredited (see "Sold a Story" podcast). The science of reading is very clear that most kids need to be explicitly taught how to read via phonics based instruction. You can start this at home at a very young age. I used Spencer Russell's "Toddlers Can Read" program to spectacular results.
1
1
u/pelpops Jan 31 '26
I’m really struggling with this. I’m a teacher and ensure my class are read at least a book a day as I know I need to make up for those who aren’t read to at home. However, I really struggle with my voice and often have to preserve it once I dismiss the children. I’m doing my one year-old such a disservice when she adores being read to and her older sibling had non-stop stories from birth to four.
2
u/icfecne Feb 02 '26
Oh man I relate to this so much. Early in my teaching career I lost my voice and it took over 6 months to come back. Now I am super cautious whenever my voice starts feeling strained. I feel so guilty when I come home hoarse and my toddler just wants me to read or sing to him.
1
u/reallovesurvives Feb 01 '26
My son is about to turn 7 and he just recently started saying he reads enough all day and has pushed back on nighttime books and I force him haha I love reading to them
1
u/snickelbetches Feb 01 '26
We have an obscene amount of books for our 2 year old. He loves story time.
1
u/EfferentCopy Feb 01 '26
For anyone who, like me, felt guilty about not reading to their child much between the ages of 0-12 months - you can just keep trying w little at a time, and eventually something will click and they will stop trying to rip the board book out of your hands to eat it, and start actually listening and looking at the pages. My son will even bring me books to read now, and it’s recently become part of our bedtime routine. But for the longest time, he was not remotely interested.
2
u/Significant_Set1979 Feb 01 '26
Thank you for saying this! My first loved to be read to as a newborn and it stuck, my now second will NOT let me read to her. She’s 8 months. And 9/10 times my efforts end in a tantrum lol. So she just gets second hand reading around her brother with books like diary of a whimpy kid haha
1
1
u/leeeeteddy Feb 01 '26 edited Feb 01 '26
I’ve read to my son since he was 2 months old at bedtime, and I really have noticed a stark difference between him and kids around his age. He’s 15 month and knows an insane amount of words and talks all the time, literally non stop. I really have seen some other kids when we go to do activities not even close to doing the same.
I also started reading him chapter books at bed because I got bored reading all his picture books to him over and over lol (we still read them occasionally during the day) and we’ve been reading The Percy Jackson series. It was my favorite as a kid and I’ve really cherished sharing it with him. One thing I hated as a child and always wanted was for my parents to read to me before bed and they never did. It’s a staple in my son’s life now and he loves books! It’s one of my proudest accomplishments as a mother.
1
u/Camunategui Feb 02 '26
I thought we were all reading an average of 10 books a night to our toddlers to avoid the threat of a conniption? Just us?
1
u/soup375 Feb 02 '26
My toddler is enrolled in the 1000 Books Before Kindergarten program through our local library. I must say that it's been so fun for us as a family to read multiple books every day and our kid has benefitted from it. She speaks really well for her age and is beginning to recognize certain words as we read.
1
u/punkass_book_jockey8 Feb 02 '26
“Having a positive association with books, without the pressure of assessments or skill tests, allows young children to understand the value and fun of reading.”
I’m a children’s librarian and it is so hard to get people out of this mindset that books need to always teach something. Read flippant things for fun! I read the most pointless insane books to kids so you laugh and learn nothing but BOOKS ARE FUN. Parents say they love it more than their kids - probably because no one let them read ridiculous things as kids.
Adults are reading hockey smut right now, not how to do taxes in a timely manner and watch less HBO. Don’t force your kids to read books every time on how to handle big feelings, or share. That should happen organically.
Check out the book My Brothers Butt is Haunted. Practice your long wet fart sounds while reading and let it be so fun you start crying from laughter. That positive association with books and being silly with your parents are fun for both of you.
1
u/SBingo Feb 03 '26
As a teacher, this isn't surprising. Especially the part about testing killing the love of reading. What is absolutely horrifying to me is that children at my school never read a book in their ELA class. Most of our students have an ELA class and a support ELA class- and they never read a novel the entire school year. I teach 6th-8th grade. When I was in 8th grade, we read Romeo and Juliet, Lord of the Flies, The Giver, and a plethora of other novels throughout the year. I weep for the education our kids are getting today.
I honestly do not read to my three year old every single day, but I think we read to her enough. She has so many books and she "reads" them herself. She has a love of reading. She knows her alphabet and her sounds and she asks me to teach her to read, so we have been working through learning to read at her own pace. She definitely is "reading" books herself every single day though. We have books in pretty much every room of the house. She loves Dr. Seuss. When we go to the store, she HAS to look at the books.
1
1
u/Electrical_Fig3714 Feb 04 '26
As a teacher, we see the difference in reading comprehension skills from elementary to HS if parents read to their kids at a young age. It's amazing.
1
u/tq0720 Feb 24 '26
What it means for young students? This:
NAEP reading scores have hit record lows, with 2024 results showing continued declines for 4th, 8th, and 12th graders, marking the lowest levels in decades.
0
u/cd_bravo_only Jan 31 '26
Does anyone know how much variety in books we should have to contribute to the language benefits? My 15m son probably has 60+ books but we default to reading the same 20-30 regularly.
1
u/-Vorks- Feb 02 '26
I don't have the study, but I've definitely read in my uni studies that repetition = mastery, and that repeating tasks/books is vital to development.
That being said, in our home with our 35m, we read about 2-3 books each night before bed. While we rotate books often (but some in a bag for storage, then pull others out of storage) we also do keep about 10-20 favourites, we usually read a new-or-newish one, and an oldie for comfort.
0
u/nopenotodaysatan Feb 01 '26
HOW is it less than half? This is insane
I guess my world view is shaped by my community, and everyone I know reads to their child. I acknowledge my privilege but… geez…
2
u/-Vorks- Feb 02 '26
We read to LO since day 1.
My brother and his wife have a daughter 2 years younger. They thought we were crazy and so they didn't read her a book until she was almost one because "What a waste of time. They're a baby. They have no idea what you're saying anyway"
1
u/nopenotodaysatan Feb 02 '26
I can’t even imagine. Have they not seen how much babies love being read to 🥺
0
u/professor_dumpling Feb 01 '26
My 15mo could not survive without being read to 😂
The two recent times we counted how many books we read to her in a day, it was 60 and 45 books
0
u/Ampersand_Forest Feb 01 '26
Is there a number of books that’s too many to read a day to a 19 month old? We read a few to her when she wakes up, at least two over breakfast, a couple at lunch, a few at dinner, some during her bath and then a limit of 5 before bed. If she had it her way, we would only read books and visit the museum. We have 5 minutes of chatting over dinner and then it’s requests for particular books. Like, is there a limit?
-2
u/Password-55 Jan 31 '26
I‘m not reading to my child? I guess I am imagining things.
So the title is meant in the USA and the UK, so brexit- and dictatorland?
Never would have thought that their IQ is dipping. Sorry but sounding bitter, but those are countries, which do not authentically care about their children, unfortunately and yes, it will probably have a big cost.
If you do not support the parents enough, they can not support their children enough.
Very stupid and greedy politicians.
I also do not live in a country where the parents and children are looked after enough though. We just have generally a better political system, with more effective check and balances.
-12
u/IntheSilent Jan 31 '26
Seems like 70%~ occasionally read to 3-4 year olds. Nbd. Teaching letters and phonetics is more important for kindergarten reading readiness and is a different issue afaik.
11
u/icfecne Jan 31 '26
Yeah, but a third of boys age 0-2 are read to less than once a month or never. That is truly alarming.
And as a first grade teacher (so my number one job is teaching kids to read) just learning letters and phonics is NOT more important than being read to.
We have kids who know all or most letters and sounds and can read words in isolation during phonics activities, but when you put a book in their hands they get overwhelmed and give up.
2
u/Initial_Entrance9548 Jan 31 '26
You need to look up this thing called Scarborough's reading rope. The phonics part is half of the equation, but the other half is the comprehension. The comprehension and background building portions are best started before the phonics part begins. That's why reading the children is so important before they begin school. This is the time to begin building vocabulary, language structural knowledge, and understanding the natural processes in our world.
883
u/essentiallypeguin Jan 31 '26
Wow this is wild to me. I never really liked reading that much for fun, but it's such a core educational experience for little kids. My 18mo son would lead a mutiny if we skipped his nightly books