Words.
A child needs a forest of words to wander through, a sea of words to
splash in. A child needs to be read to, and a child needs to read.
Reading
fuels the fires of intelligence and imagination, and if they don’t
blaze well before elementary school, a child’s education — a child’s life — may be an endless game of catch-up.
“Kids
who read more get better at reading, and because they are better at
reading, it’s easier and more pleasurable so they read still more,” he
[Daniel Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and the author of Raising Kids Who Read] said. “And kids who read well don’t just do better in English class — it
helps them in math, science and every other class, too.”
I’d
go even further. Reading tugs them outside of themselves, connecting
them to a wider world and filling it with wonder. It’s more than
fundamental. It’s transformative.
Read the article in its entirety here: "The Gift of Reading".
- ALSO READ: "Read, kids, read"
