I think I said this before, but it’s worth saying again.
When our daughter (Orchid) was a baby, my wife (Sunflowering) started reading to her. I mean, two months old. At that time Orchid couldn’t even maintain any attention to the page. I thought this was pointless, but I let it go, and Sunflowering kept it up.
By the time she was six months, Orchid was paying close attention to the reading, and I was reading to her, too. By nine months she was pointing to the pictures (correctly) when asked a question. By one year, Orchid was trying to sound out some of the words. By two years she knew Madeline (“In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines lived twelve little girls in two straight lines…”) and could intervene at crucial points (mispronouncing, in a baby voice, but at the exact right moment). By the time she was five years old I read to her regularly at bedtime, a routine that lasted until she was 13. She kept reading on her own at bedtime until college, which seems to prevent most students from reading for pleasure. And she’ll get back to it.
What does she want to be when she graduates? A writer.
The point is, Sunflowering was right, and I was wrong. Getting them into the habit before they’re supposedly ready means that when they’re ready, they’ll already be into it.
And it definitely shows them that Mama loves them.
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