For a better chance of lifelong success, all you have to do is give your kids a million

I didn’t go to kindergarten.  Back in the 1800s (and also in the 1960s!), public kindergarten wasn’t a thing in North Dakota.  Thank goodness, that has changed.  My grandson, Eddie, turns six tomorrow.  Like most kids his age, he attends full-time kindergarten and is reading like second-graders used to “Grandma, I started reading chapter books!,” he proudly announced recently.  While authors like me see NOTHING wrong with sticking with pictures books long after age six, there is a whole lot of stats out there imploring families to sit down with their kids and read—as soon as they are born.  By age two, a child’s brain is as active as an adult’s.  By age three, the brain is more than TWICE as active as an adult’s—and stays that way for the first 10 years of life.  By age 3, roughly 85 percent of the brain is developed.  What should families do to nurture that development? READ TO THEM!  SHOW THEM THAT READING IS FUN! According to a study from Ohio State University, one-fourth of children in a national sample are never read to, and another one-fourth of children are seldom read to. The same study found that children whose parents read them five books a day enter kindergarten having heard about 1.4 MILLION more words than kids who were weren’t read to. Based on their calculations, here is how many words kids would have heard by the time they were five years old:

Never read to: 4,662 words;

1-2 times per week: 63,570 words;

3-5 times per week: 169,520 words;

7 times per week (daily): 296,660 words

Five books a day: 1,483,300 words. Keep in mind where that million-word vocabulary will take a child:  —A better childhood:  A study found that when children know more words, they have an easier time paying attention and be more engaged in school, have better relationships with teachers, socialize more easily and receive more positive feedback from their peers.

—A better adulthood:  A study indicates that early reading levels in first grade as well as the trajectory of reading development through the first five years of school were associated with reading scores in adulthood. In 2024,  21 percent of US adults are illiterate.  Would that be the case if every child was read to beginning at birth?

You’ve heard it before, but now, more than ever—READ to and with the children in your life!