At my book signings, someone almost always comments on my handwriting as I autograph copies of Reading for Our Lives. It catches me off guard, until I remember that the parents in my line keep getting younger. For many of them, cursive belongs to grandparents and historical documents, not to their world—let alone that of their kids.
I’ve been thinking about that lately, because of my own teenager. My husband is a stickler about thank-you notes, and watching my 14-year-old write one recently, I noticed her handwriting was really just printing with the occasional flourish. Somewhere between COVID closures and a cross-country move, formal cursive instruction never stuck. I don’t want her to grow up incapable of capturing handwritten notes at the speed of a lecture or corresponding with people in a nice elegant script that matches the occasion.
Old school? Yes. And, still important. I do my deepest thinking in cursive and my most practical notetaking thanks to some shorthand learned in journalism school, so I plan to help her build her skills over summer.
Nobody assigned me to catch that lack. I caught it because I’m the one who’s there, seeing her day in and day out, noticing what she does with ease and what could use some time, attention, or support. That’s what it means to monitor your child’s reading and learning: quietly tracking where they are, year after year. It’s the most underrated thing a parent does.
You’re the Connective Tissue
No one is positioned in your child’s life the way you are.
A classroom teacher may have your child for a span of months–along with a couple dozen others. A school may have them for a span of years—though staff may rotate during that time. You’re with them through the full arc of their education, and you see them everywhere: playing, eating, melting down, lighting up, going quiet in a new room. You are the connective tissue around all of their other experiences, the steady perspective, the enduring advocate.
That presence is a superpower. It gives you insight no specialist can replicate—insight that’s genuinely useful to the teachers, doctors, and librarians in your child’s life. We don’t hand off responsibility when our kids start school. We hold onto it, because no one cares more than we do, no one is there for the long haul in the same way, and no one is better placed to notice when something is off, or when something is wonderful.
That’s why it’s so important for you, as a parent, to monitor your child’s progress.
Sometimes Monitoring Means Catching the Good Stuff
When I advise parents to keep an eye on their kids’ progress, I sometimes worry that it sounds clinical—like you’re hunting for delays and issues. So let me tell you about my dad.
I’m 45 years old, and I still remember the day we got my fourth-grade proficiency test scores from the state of Ohio. My dad looked at them, smiled ear to ear, and announced in a silly voice, “The girl’s a genius.” That’s the whole memory. And honestly, his saying those words cemented a confidence in me that I carry to this day, more than the scores themselves ever could have.
Let’s look at what he actually did. He read the state assessment data—something I’m always telling parents to review—and instead of filing it away, he turned it into a celebration. That’s monitoring at its best. Everybody smiles and claps when a baby takes a first step. We should be just as quick to mark the reading milestones, for our children and for ourselves.
I do this for my daughter now, though my style has shifted. My husband and I lean toward praising her process—what goes into desired results. We try to note when she’s putting in work toward a goal and to ask “what would a growth mindset say?” when she feels like she’s come up short. Resisting the urge to label the outcome is deliberate, shaped by what research now tells us about the value of praising effort, process, strategy, or inputs, versus fixed traits or results. But the core—noticing and celebrating wins—remains.
So, as we tackle cursive together this summer, we’ll have fun with it, and we’ll celebrate the payoff: a signature that’s actually hers, faster notes, a new way of working in class.
Speaking of signatures, we shared a good laugh over the President’s Education Awards Program certificates that came home at the end of the school year. The president’s signature on them looks like a little mountain range, all sharp up-and-down strokes that don’t resemble letters much at all. Kids at the school actually Googled it to check whether it was real. Signatures sometimes speak volumes.
When Something Nags at You, Act on It
The flip side of celebration is: When a worry surfaces, honor that, too.
Monitoring means trusting the small, nagging questions that come up about your child’s language and literacy, and then doing something about them. Not hand-wringing. Not waiting to see. But taking action to get your questions answered and find support.
I’ve written before about a mom who was told again and again to “just wait” while her son struggled to read, and who refused—and who, in doing so, changed everything for him for the better. Every day, kids fall through the cracks. The goal isn’t to panic when your child hits a bump in the road. It’s to feel a quiet urgency about being proactive, because odds are no one else is going to rescue your child if there’s a problem.
You Already Know More than you Think
If this feels like one more thing on an impossible list, start small. There’s a simple structure I use in Reading for Our Lives, and it comes down to three items.
- Guidelines: Pick one resource that tells you what abilities are typical or hoped for at your child’s age or grade. You can take a look at the CDC’s developmental milestones, your state’s early learning guidelines, or its English language arts standards. Pick just one and get familiar with it.
- Personal observations: Keep a running note, in a pocket notebook or on your phone, of what you see going on with your child’s reading and writing development. The great stuff, the funny stuff, the things that puzzle or worry you. Add the date.
- Specialists: List the people who can help: a teacher, a family-engagement coordinator, a pediatrician, a librarian. Then take advantage of the openings to reach them, like an annual well-child visit, a parent-teacher conference, or a library event for parents. When you do, don’t be shy about asking questions. Often, they chose their field because they want to help.
Seeing those three items written out does something. It reminds you that you’re not alone, and that you already hold a deep, expert knowledge of your own child that’s worth sharing with others who can support them.
This is the part of raising a reader that doesn’t get a milestone chart of its own. But it’s the part only you can do. If not you, then who?
You’ll find more information about monitoring your child’s development and knowing when to seek help in my book, Reading for Our Lives.
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Learn how to foster your child’s pre-reading and reading skills easily, affordably, and playfully in the time you’re already spending together.
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In the 1800s, a legendary swamp teemed with vining plants, warbling songbirds, and colorful butterflies in eastern Indiana—before it was drained, razed, tapped for oil and timber, and turned into dry, flat farmland as far as the eye could see.
But still the swamp, intriguingly named the “Limberlost,” lived on in the imagination of people who never knew it in real life. Even when no one remained with personal experience of it, the Limberlost persisted in the minds of those who had read about it in popular fiction.
That was thanks to numerous runaway best-sellers penned in the early 1900s by a woman who flaunted the conventions of her world to become a working woman—a daring nature reporter and wildly popular novelist. Named Gene Stratton-Porter, she tramped through the swamp in boots and (scandalously) pants, camera slung around her neck.
Stratton-Porter meticulously documented the wildlife of the lush habitat she loved and could see dwindling away before her. She published extensive nonfiction nature studies of the area—plus megahit novels that drew in generations of readers despite being largely forgotten today.
Young-adult and middle-grade novels like Freckles, A Girl of the Limberlost, and many others told touching, uplifting fictional tales set against the backdrop of the Limberlost’s pristine wilderness. Many were also made into films at the dawn of the movie era.
Stratton-Porter evoked the beauty of the swamp and the life it harbored like a kind of Garden of Eden, with an articulate affection that managed to stir an aching longing in those who never saw it. Ahead of her time, she also predicted the drought and climate changes that would come from draining wetlands and cutting forests.
Her portrayal kept the Limberlost alive in legend—and then, amazingly, helped bring it back in reality.
Many decades after she and her beloved swamp were both gone, and a century after she first wrote about it, Stratton-Porter’s words inspired an incredible rebirth of the Limberlost.
Moved by her books, a small group of people worked to buy and rehabilitate a stretch of the former wetlands. They drew inspiration from the author’s detailed descriptions of the lost wilderness to slowly restore the wetlands and coax back the vanishing species that once thrived there.
Today, visitors can explore the Loblolly Marsh and Limberlost nature preserves to see some 1,500 acres of recovered wilderness once again bursting with life, achieving a level of biodiversity that had seemed forever lost. (The Loblolly Marsh, so-named for a Miami Native American word, was the first preserve reclaimed by a few Stratton-Porter fans.)
It’s a tale of hope that illustrates how powerful fiction can be when it touches hearts—and how much impact individuals can have when their hearts are touched. It offers a valuable lesson in leveraging the empathy learned through stories into action in the real world. To me, it also underscores the value of exposing children to myriad works of fiction from across diverse places, times, cultures, perspectives, and traditions.
The Girl of the Limberlost was a favorite of my own grandmother, though I don’t recall ever reading it as a child. My kids never got to know their great-grandmother, but they know something of her through family stories, a hodge-podge of rickety belongings passed down somewhat haphazardly, old sepia-toned photos, and a few equally sepia-tinged books.
When my kids were small, we read a few old novels that took place in the small Florida community my grandmother spent many years in. It was only natural that one day we would get around to Stratton-Porter’s nearly forgotten classic, too. By the time I acquired an age-spotted copy of A Girl of the Limberlost, though, only my youngest was interested in sitting down to listen—but she was enthralled.
The story opens on a misunderstood girl who goes off to school in the city, only to be mocked mercilessly for her poor, unfashionable clothing. It’s a sentimental tale of underdog triumph and emotional redemption with the kind of timeless appeal that speaks to children with a deep sense of justice (and injustice). It went straight to my young daughter’s heart, despite its antiquated language.
And so, this third-hand book recommendation from a long-gone great-grandmother resurfaced, after skipping a couple of generations, and briefly transported my child out of her place in time, into another world. Someday, she may pass along the recommendation and keep these memories alive a little longer.
Be that as it may, though, I like to think that either way she’ll remember the real-world story: That a small group of people—rather than succumbing to nostalgia or fatalism in reading about a beautiful world destroyed by human folly—took matters into their own hands and made their world a little better.
Most of all, I hope that she may take the lesson of the recovered Limberlost and let it inspire her. That she’ll carry it with her, a reminder to do her own part to help raze what’s not right, plant the seeds of what should be, and forge a future that’s as bright and beautiful as the best worlds in books.
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Get Reading for Our Lives The first time I took all three of my kids to an art museum, the experience almost devolved into a standoff of nagging about walking feet and indoor voices (me) vs defiant wandering (them), before we called a truce and salvaged our day.
I’d had fond but vague memories of that museum from my own childhood and had gone into the outing with unrealistic expectations. The experience reminded me to be flexible, keep outings fun, and respond to my kids.
Exposing kids to diverse experiences, from nature to plays to historic sites to author talks to museums and more, is one of the joys of parenting. As I’ve learned, it can also be frustrating if we don’t take measures to make it enjoyable for everyone. With that in mind, this post explores practical tips for taking kids to “grownup” museums with less fussing and more fun.
Why Take Kids to Museums
First, though, it’s worth thinking about why we want to take our kids to see museum exhibits on art, history, science, language, and other subjects. Besides exposing our kids to things we care about, outings like this—and the other kinds of diverse experiences mentioned above—support kids’ development and set them up for success in reading and school.
That’s because these experiences build rich vocabulary and background knowledge that can support kids as they learn to read, and then as they tackle ever-more complex reading material later on. The more words and topics they’ve encountered in real life, the more they’ll be prepared to comprehend when they come across them in books, as extensive research has shown.
There are plenty of rich experiences out there created with kids in mind, like children’s museums, petting zoos, library story times, and a plethora of kid-oriented events. It’s worth exploring as many of these as you can with little ones—but there’s also real value in taking kids to places that don’t expressly cater to children, including those that hold special interest for you.
Here are a few tips to make those adventures as successful as possible.
Go to the Museum for Free
Taking children to “regular” museums is great for exposing them to something new and stretching them. Just keep in mind that stretching works best when it’s done slowly, a little at a time.
For that reason, it’s good to be prepared for a shorter visit than you might make on your own. Going on a free community day or getting free passes from a library—many museums offer both!—can ease the guilt of leaving early.
A full-price visit may be well worth it, too, especially if you have a tight schedule or want to avoid crowds, but remind yourself that the goal is to leave the museum on a positive enough note that you’re both interested in repeating the experience. That may mean keeping it short and sweet.
Tease the Topic
Your kids will enjoy the museum a lot more if they understand something about what they’re looking at, so it’s worth introducing them to the topic of the exhibit ahead of time.
I once took my kids to see ancient Egyptian artifacts in a museum when none of them really knew anything about the relevant history—to mixed results. I went to a similar exhibit another time after one of them had just studied ancient Egypt in school, and it hit home a lot better.
Simple lack of understanding is an overlooked cause of many behavior and attention problems, from kids struggling with reading comprehension in classrooms to those running amok on field trips, as happened with my daughter’s fourth-grade class. A young docent talked to the students about many topics—all utterly unfamiliar to them—in eloquent language far beyond their grade level. Predictably, he had trouble keeping their attention.
You can avoid this issue by introducing the topic ahead of time and keeping your explanations understandable. No need to go all-in on teaching beforehand, but sharing some picture books or a kid-friendly documentary about the exhibit’s subject can set the stage for a better visit. If you keep it on their level and model enthusiasm, they may get excited, too.
Keep it Fun and Go at Their Pace
Again, you may not be able to read every plaque or see every display piece when you go to a museum with kids. Prepare yourself to go at their speed, take breaks as needed, and hit the road when it’s time. (When my usually mature 11-year-old took a running start before leaping up and rebounding off the wall of the British Museum, I knew it was time for us to leave!)
Even better, add some playful elements or turn part of your visit into a game. When I was small, my mother let me sit down on a bench in an art museum gallery and create my own art, for example. She also welcomed my opinions and wasn’t scandalized if I didn’t like some of what I looked at—in fact, discussing our thoughts about what we saw was part of the fun.
I love this scavenger hunt idea that the Guardian newspaper published from a reader named Nadia, too: Take the kids to the museum shop first and let each choose a few postcards of artworks. Then wander the museum, trying to find the pieces on each child’s cards. Finally, hit the cafe to vote on your favorite piece.
And, speaking of cafes, that brings me to my last point…
Feed Them (and Yourself)
Build in a break to feed your bodies as well as your brains, and make it part of the enjoyment. Refreshments can keep your crew going and complete the outing with some simpler pleasures on top of the intellectual ones.
Museum cafes are often charming, fairly relaxed places to get a snack for the kids and a much-needed pick-me-up for yourself, too—but there’s also usually a courtyard or other outdoor area where you can have a picnic from home. It also gives kids room to let off steam after being on their best behavior inside.
Plan ahead and bring some fun snacks or check that the cafe will be open, then take the break whenever you need it.
The Bottom Line
You don’t need a perfect museum day. Just a few good moments can be enough to introduce the concept to your little ones and set the stage for future visits.
Even if your trip doesn’t go as well as you hoped, try to end on a high note, whether it’s finding one fun exhibit, hitting the museum gift shop, or just laughing together over whatever went wrong (or whatever they didn’t like).
That may be all your child actually remembers later—plus the idea that going to museums is “something they do.” And that could be the biggest success of all.
Get Reading for Our Lives
Learn how to foster your child’s pre-reading and reading skills easily, affordably, and playfully in the time you’re already spending together.
Get Reading for Our Lives Getting a first email account is a rite of passage—and it’s one that’s happening younger and younger. Often, kids may have emails from school or created by parents before they’re even quite sure what email is (or how it differs from texting, something my twelve-year-old still struggles with).
Email can help them sign up for apps, communicate with teachers and coaches, get school updates, and stay connected with friends. But email can quickly become overwhelming for kids, too, especially for those who have never learned how to manage it. (Take my high school senior, for example, who didn’t know archived emails could ever be found again.)
We all know that email piles up fast. Notifications from school platforms, newsletters, sign-ups, password resets, club updates, and random marketing emails can flood an inbox in no time. I get a little anxious just thinking about it. And for a young person still learning organization and executive functioning skills, that digital clutter can turn into digital stress even faster than for the rest of us.
The good news is that email management is a learnable skill. With some simple habits and systems, kids, tweens, and teens can keep their inbox a little less overwhelming—and head off the “I have 3,000 unread emails” problem before it starts. (It may come back with a vengeance once they’re adults, but hopefully they’ll be a little better equipped to handle it.)
To get you started, here are some practical ways parents can help kids learn to manage email. If your child already has hundreds or thousands of emails, start with step one for a reset. If you’re just setting up their first email account or it isn’t flooded yet, skip to step two.
1. Start With an Inbox Clean-Up
Sit down together and:
- Delete obvious junk or promotional emails. Search for large senders (like stores or apps) to delete in bulk.
- Unsubscribe from newsletters they never read. Archive any they want to hold onto.
Keep only messages from school, activities, family, and friends. Show them how to label these or put them in folders, and archive as much as possible.
Many email services let you search by sender or category and apply bulk actions, which makes this faster than scrolling through everything.
The goal is not perfection. The goal is getting the inbox down to a manageable size, so your child does not feel defeated before they even begin.
2. Teach Your Child Basic Email Skills
Don’t take for granted that your child knows all the email features we grownups could do in our sleep—in fact, assume they don’t. Show them how to:
- Delete messages
- Archive messages
- Unsubscribe from emails
- Check their spam folder
- Check their recently deleted emails
- Report spam or block a sender (and when it’s appropriate)
While you’re at it, you should probably show them how to see the address a message came from and evaluate if it’s legitimate. Demonstrate the difference between reply and “reply all,” too, along with other useful basics.
3. Teach the “Touch It Once” Rule
One of the biggest reasons inboxes explode is that people open messages and then leave them sitting there. (Guilty!)
Teach kids this useful rule:
When you open an email, decide what to do with it right away. The options:
- Reply if it needs an answer.
- Do the task if it takes less than a minute.
- Add the task to a to-do list in a notebook or online, then archive the message.
- Flag the message if they need to come back to it later.
- Archive or delete if they are done with it.
This prevents the inbox from becoming a messy to-do list. If they get a lot of emails that require action, they should get in the habit of putting those on a task list and archiving the emails, rather than letting their inbox get clogged up.
4. Set Up Simple Folders
Kids do not need a complicated filing system. Just a few folders or labels can make their email much easier to manage.
Consider creating folders for:
- School
- Activities
- Friends and family
- Accounts and apps
- Receipts or orders, once they’re old enough to shop online
Show your child how to move emails into folders (or label and archive) so their inbox stays focused on new messages.
5. Use Filters to Do the Work Automatically
One of the easiest ways to reduce inbox clutter is to let technology sort our emails automatically.
Many email services allow filters that send certain messages straight to a folder or give them the label you choose. If you’re not sure how to do this within their email platform, search for tutorials online.
For example:
- Emails from teachers → School folder/label
- Sports team updates → Activities folder/label
Once filters are set up, important messages become much easier to find and it becomes much easier to keep that inbox a little less overwhelming.
You can also show them how to add regular senders to their contacts or allowed lists to avoid important messages being wrongly sent to spam—and how to automatically flag some must-see messages as important.
6. Encourage Regular Inbox Check-Ins
Kids often ignore email until something goes wrong—like missing an assignment update or a team schedule change. Once they realize it’s important, on the other hand, they may overcorrect by checking constantly, increasing their screen time and digital overload.
Parents can help them build the habit of checking often enough without becoming a slave to notifications.
Help your child build a simple routine:
- Check email once a day at a set time. A good time may be after school, before starting homework. It’s healthiest for younger kids to avoid devices before school, so checking later in the day is probably best.
- As they get older, they can start checking again at another specific time of day. Eventually, they will need to check once in the morning for urgent messages.
Checking regularly keeps messages from piling up and reduces last-minute surprises, while limiting it to certain times helps manage screen time and stress.
7. Teach Kids to Unsubscribe Aggressively
Kids often sign up for things without realizing how many emails will follow. App accounts (including those required for school) and purchases also all usually come with their own automatic newsletter opt-ins.
Teach your child that it is completely normal to unsubscribe from anything they do not want.
A good rule: If they have not read the last three emails from a sender, unsubscribe. They can always resubscribe later, if they want or need to.
Cleaning up mailing lists can dramatically reduce inbox clutter.
8. Explain Why Email Still Matters
Many kids prefer texting, messaging apps, or social platforms. But email is still going to be very important for them over the coming years, including for:
- School communication
- College applications
- Job opportunities
- Activity schedules
…and more. Helping kids learn to manage email now prepares them for adulthood, when email becomes even more essential. Explaining why it matters can motivate them to actually take your wisdom on board and make the effort.
9. Turn Off Unnecessary Notifications
Constant notifications can make email feel stressful.
Many kids benefit from turning off push notifications and checking email at set times, as described above. This way, they can stay in control of their screen time rather than getting pulled in anytime and anywhere they get a new message.
Email works best when it is intentional, not constant.
10. Optional: Separate “Sign-Up Email” From Personal Email
Many youngsters sign up for games, apps, lists, and websites that generate lots of automated messages.
While this approach is not for everyone, some people can benefit from using two separate email accounts:
- Main email: school, teachers, activities, important messages
- Sign-up email: apps, games, shopping, promotions
This can keep important communications from getting buried. It’s tricky to remember to sign in and check multiple email accounts, though—so think hard about whether your child is ready to handle it.
An alternative middle ground is to create a sign-up email but set it to forward to your child’s main inbox. Then you can configure their main email to automatically label messages forwarded from the other account, and put those messages in a special folder.
The Big Goal: Confidence, Not Perfection
Ultimately, the goal is not a perfectly empty inbox. It’s to help your child feel in control of their digital space instead of overwhelmed by it.
In today’s world, learning how to manage an inbox is a lot like learning how to manage a backpack: if you never clean it out, things pile up fast.
Email management is really about executive functioning skills—prioritizing, organizing, and deciding what matters.
Helping your child start mastering their inbox now supports them to feel more in control and tackle the challenges ahead as their responsibilities grow.
Get Reading for Our Lives: The Urgency of Early Literacy and the Action Plan to Help Your Child
Learn how to foster your child’s pre-reading and reading skills easily, affordably, and playfully in the time you’re already spending together.
Get Reading for Our Lives When I wrote Reading for Our Lives, I envisioned it aiding a busy mom—someone hustling through the whirlwind of life with young children, but with an eye on preparing them for success in school and beyond. For her, I filled the book with practical everyday strategies to weave literacy into the fabric of family life, from mealtimes and diaper changes to errand runs and playground jaunts.
What I didn’t anticipate was how much the book would resonate with civic leaders, corporate professionals, and others who were far removed from diaper duty but drawn to the power of literacy to shape communities. One such reader is Kevin Long, a commercial litigation attorney at Quarles & Brady in Milwaukee.
Long didn’t set out to become a literacy advocate. But through a journey driven by a series of questions—he’s curious, persistent, and purposeful—he’s become a catalyst for change, urging Milwaukee’s business community to invest in early-literacy initiatives.
Recognizing Root Causes
For Long, service to others has always been central to his life. Guided by Jesuit principles of being “men and women for others,” he and his wife, Peggy, have long sought ways to uplift their community. Professionally, Long drew inspiration from leaders at his law firm, especially attorneys John Daniels and Mike Gonring, who modeled giving back.
When Long heard me speak about early literacy at a Fellowship Open event, a charity golf weekend benefitting youth empowerment programs, something clicked. He left with a copy of Reading for Our Lives, read it, reflected on it, and asked himself, What does this mean for Milwaukee?
He connected the dots between what he read in the book and what he’d witnessed in local schools. “In almost all of them that you talk to, they all correctly state what a great job they do with their students and how much their students learn,” Long shared. “But they will always say that far too often the students come to them, whether they’re a high school or a grade school, and they’re a little bit behind and we need to catch them up in this way or that way.”
Reading for Our Lives helped him see the bigger picture—that success in the K-12 years or even college doesn’t start there. “The development of any person begins in the earliest years,” he said. “The more you can do in the beginning years of a child’s life, the better you’re going to set them up for success down the road.”
Turning Skepticism into Momentum
Inspired but cautious, Long started small. He didn’t make a grand statement or lead a large campaign. Rather, he began hosting meetings with civic and educational leaders, researching existing programs, and asking thoughtful questions. One of his key discoveries was Reach Out and Read, a program that integrates books into pediatric well-child visits, equipping parents with tools to foster reading habits from birth.
“I looked at things skeptically and said, What’s proved to me that this is going to work before we go ask people to invest a lot of money in this?” he explained. What he found was a program with strong evidence, clear goals, and a powerful framework for reaching families through healthcare touchpoints. “When you have a new birth in your family, there’s an invigoration of everything around that child,” Long said. “That sort of energy helps families coalesce around a strategy to do the best for their child.”
Long’s curiosity deepened: Why don’t more families have access to this? What can I do to help? These questions became the foundation of his advocacy. He championed the program, even convening local foundations and philanthropists to explore its potential.
“Milwaukee is small enough that people who care about something will run into each other,” Long noted. “That’s a huge advantage when building relationships and driving change.” His efforts culminated in a single meeting that raised over $100,000 for Reach Out and Read. For his leadership, Long received the organization’s Stellar Partner Award—a testament to the power of thoughtful questions and bold action.
Your Turn
Long’s story proves you don’t need perfect answers or grand plans. Advocacy starts small—by showing up, listening, and asking thoughtful questions. What’s at the root of the problem? Who’s already working on it? How can I help?
Curiosity, not certainty, drove Long’s success. His questions unlocked funding, built partnerships, and expanded early literacy efforts across Milwaukee.
Change starts with curiosity. It grows with connection. And it leads to concerted action. So why not start with a question of your own? Why not you?
Get Reading for Our Lives: A Literacy Action Plan from Birth to Six
Learn how to foster your child’s pre-reading and reading skills easily, affordably, and playfully in the time you’re already spending together.
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There’s evidence that initial memory and learning of voices and language begins before birth. By the third trimester of pregnancy, the sound of a mother’s voice may be transmitted from the amniotic fluid through the fetus’s skull and into the inner ear. So go ahead and speak up. Talk to your baby bump, because exposure to ambient language in the womb likely contributes to their phonetic perception.
Fun fact: Babies learn to perceive vowels before consonants, because “vowels are louder, longer in duration and carry salient prosodic information (melody, rhythm and stress).” One study of newborns in the United States and Sweden found evidence that at less than a day old, babies could distinguish between and reacted differently to vowel sounds from their first (familiar) language and another language. Why? Because they’d been hearing Mom’s voice and getting used to her vowel sounds for weeks prior.
Picture infants, just 20 hours old, lying on their backs in bassinets with sensor-fitted, computer-connected pacifiers in their mouths and padded headphones on their ears. That’s how the researchers tested their hypothesis!
Development from Birth to 6 Months
In the beginning, your newborn baby is speechless, except for a symphony of intermittent crying. They use the only sounds they know to tell you how they feel: whines of discomfort, low rumbles of hunger, and the soft moans of fatigue.
Your challenge is to tend to the immediate need—change the diaper, feed the baby, sing the lullaby—while also recognizing crying’s place in a broader language, learning, and literacy journey. As speech and language therapist Nicola Lathey puts it, “crying is, in fact, nature’s way of enabling a baby to climb the language development ladder!” Waaaaaah!—those long vowel sounds are the seeds of words to come.
By the third month of life, infants add coos (comfort sounds in stress-free situations) to the mix, and win caregivers’ attention and loving responses. It’s easy to overlook the learning happen- ing amid the feeding, clothing, and washing that make up new-born life. But with practice, you can tune in, and you’ll be rewarded with new insights and discoveries. You’ll be able to notice the precious moments when cries become more speech-like in tone, as your little one gradually gains more control of their voice.
Of course, your level of talk and engagement affects your little one’s, so talk and sing at every opportunity. Mealtimes, bath times, and diaper changes are perfect points in the day to make conversation.
Beyond verbal communication, a lot of language development goes on through gestures, facial expressions, and even eye gaze. Infants pay a lot of attention to and learn from what they see, including what they see you looking at. Babies start following caregivers’ gaze between 2 and 4 months old—and evidence shows that they tend to learn more with gaze cues than without them.
Even though they won’t be able to read the words, include books from day one to get yourself into a routine of talking and reading to your baby. By 6 months old, little ones can enjoy hearing and physically exploring books. Board or vinyl books with limited text and unadorned illustrations provide the right-fit visual and tactile stimulation your infant needs. Books with poems and nursery rhymes, too, regardless of illustrations, make it easy to use your voice in a way that will please little ears.
Start sharing books with your baby and begin discovering what they like best. Every baby is different, and yes, they have preferences. It’s fun to see their reactions—reaching for the pages, pushing books away, even falling asleep. From the get-go, your baby is driving their own learning by following their interests and gathering information. Isn’t that incredible?
Although some books make it easier to support your child where they are now, don’t stress about picking the “perfect” first books. There are none. As literacy specialists Caroline J. Blakemore and Barbara Weston Ramirez put it, “Your choice of books is not as important as making the choice to read to your baby on a regular basis.” So choosing books you enjoy is powerful, too.
Judge books by their shortness and sweetness at this age, not their literary merits. You’re likely to hold your infant’s attention on a book for only a minute or two, so you might as well make it a fun, complete experience by picking a book that delivers language and visual interest fast. And here’s a pro tip that Susan Neuman, a professor of childhood and literacy education at New York University, shared with me: “Quit before they get restless. You end at the crest of the wave.”
Select Birth-to-6-Month Milestones & Targets
Oral Language
- Cries
- Coos
- Growls, squeals, blows raspberries, and other forms of vocal play
- Recognizes and responds to your voice
Book Behavior
- Looks at books
- Reaches for books
- Looks at print and images on pages
- Holds chin up to view pages when on tummy
- Prefers to look at higher-contrast images and human faces
Development from 6 to 12 Months
The language-learning journey continues in the latter half of the first year, through back-and-forth exchanges between you and your baby. By this age, babies may respond to simple requests like “come here,” imitate your speech, and shake their head no. They explore the world around them by gazing at and reaching for things, then passing the objects from hand to hand or hand to mouth.
They’re also getting more active in telling you what they think. They make sounds in response to the sounds they hear and to express pleasure or discontentment. They answer to their names, look where you point, and point at things themselves. One study found that when infants made eye contact with a caregiver while gesturing and vocalizing, the caregivers were more likely to respond. And how responsive caregivers were to infants’ gaze-coordinated vocalizations was the best predictor of expressive language development up to 2 years old.
And now, believe it or not, is prime time to make read-alouds interactive. One study found evidence that when moms directed more questions to their 10-month-olds while reading stories, their children had better expressive and receptive language skills at 18 months old than those whose mothers hadn’t engaged with shared books in this way. (Sorry, no dads were included in this research.)
The toddlers who’d been peppered with questions like What’s that? Where’s the doggie? Do you wanna turn the pages? Ready? during storytime as babies showed greater ability to understand what others said to them. They also showed a higher capacity to communicate their needs, thoughts, and ideas using words, phrases, and gestures. So there’s value in reading books and asking related questions, even before kids can answer fully.
Think of books as tools for connection at this age. Play peekaboo with them. Point and name things on their pages. And don’t be alarmed if little ones chew or throw them. That’s learning, too. Book sharing at this age can help kids gain fine motor skills and learn language, background knowledge, print concepts, new words, and more. Along the way, remember they’re
still babies and be attentive to their cues for whether to read more or take a break. Responsiveness is key.
Select 6-to-12-Month Milestones & Targets
Oral Language
- Babbles with long and short strings of consonant-vowel combinations e.g., bababababa
- Babbles may mirror the rising and falling intonation of caregiver questions
- Uses sounds and gestures to capture your attention
- Turns toward sounds
- Recognizes their own name
Book Behavior
- Grasps books using their thumbs
- Pats, strokes, scratches, and chews books
- Moves books from hand to hand
- Directs their eye gaze to large, bright, and/or high- contrast pictures in books
- Points to pictures in books
Edited and reprinted with permission from Reading for Our Lives by Maya Payne Smart, published by AVERY, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC.
Copyright © 2022 by Maya Payne Smart.
Get Reading for Our Lives: A Literacy Action Plan from Birth to Six
Learn how to foster your child’s pre-reading and reading skills easily, affordably, and playfully in the time you’re already spending together.
Get Reading for Our Lives Development from 4 to 5 Years
Little ones at this point typically can introduce themselves with first name and last, sing a song or nursery rhyme by heart, and tell a story of their own. Ideally, 4-year-olds are also well aware of cause and effect and have developed a good bit of sophistication around language and books. They begin comparing and contrasting favorite characters in different books. They come to see books as sources for answers to questions about the world, like what are clouds? and why does it rain?
It’s time to build some print awareness by talking to your child about how books work, how print conveys meaning, and what words look like. These are vital lessons, because before a child can read print, they must notice it.
Sprinkle in a few comments (max) before or during reading that direct your child’s attention to how books are organized and how print mirrors spoken language. Use your finger to point to letters and words, which helps them connect the marks on the page with the speech they hear and understand.
Select 4-to-5-Year Milestones & Targets
Oral Language
- Uses four-word sentences, like Look at the dog.
- Uses thousands of words and carries on conversations
- Asks wh- questions: why, where, what, when, who
- Answers why, how, and would you questions
- Refers to quantities
- Uses conjunctions, like when, so, if, because
Speech-Sound Awareness
- Recognizes sounds that match and words that begin or end with the same sounds
- Recognizes and produces rhyming words
- Distinguishes, blends, and segments separate syllables in spoken words
- Recognizes single sounds and combinations of sounds
Print Awareness
- Understands that print carries meaning
- Knows print is used for many purposes
Alphabetic Knowledge
- Distinguishes letters from other symbols
- Identifies their own name in print
- Names 15 to 26 upper- and lowercase letters
- Identifies similarities and differences among letters
Emergent Writing
- Forms letters
- Writes their own name
Book Behavior
- Listens to longer stories
- Retells familiar stories
- Understands cause and effect
Development from 5 to 7 Years
By 6 years old, kids typically speak clearly, tell stories with complete sentences, use the future tense, and say their own full name and address. They can count past ten, draw a person with several body parts, and copy triangles and other shapes. They also know a good deal about everyday life, from food to money.
But real differences in their literacy skills become obvious (to them and us) at this point, too. Elementary school classrooms often put reading and writing on display in ways that can’t help but highlight student variations. Everything from the reading group they’re placed in to the work displayed on the bulletin board exposes the differences.
It can be agonizing for parents to hear about the social drama playing out in the name of education—tales of one child being put “on the computer” because they can’t read, another
checking out the same baby book from the classroom library every day because that’s what’s on “their level,” and yet another signing their name with a scribble that’s different every time.
Yet all these kids are on their own unique paths to reading. We just need to clearly identify where they are, so that we can deliver the right experiences, instruction, and additional tools to keep them forging ahead. A few quick definitions, based on what science reveals about how beginners learn to read words in and out of context, will help.
- Prereaders rely on visuals alone to make sense of words. They may recognize a word within the context of a logo—say, Nike or Target—but they are unable to read those same words in plain type without the contextual clues of color or location. They do not yet use letter-sound cues to read or write.
- Beginning or emergent readers, sometimes called partial alphabetic readers, are beginning to apply what they know about letters and sounds to read and write. They demonstrate partial knowledge of how letters map to sounds but can’t yet decode unfamiliar words. They spell phonetically (duz for does, for example).
- Readers have full command of letter-sound correspondences, can decode unfamiliar words, and spell from memory. They’ve forged solid knowledge of the spellings, pronunciations, and meanings of many words through deep experience of hearing, saying, spelling, and understanding these.
Select 5-to-7-Year Milestones & Targets
Oral Language
- Retells stories in sequential order
- Talks about events
- Uses a range of adverbs and adjectives
- Asks and answers complex questions
- Gives directions
Speech-Sound Awareness
- Isolates, identifies, and categorizes individual speech sounds
- Blends individual speech sounds
- Segments individual speech sounds
- Deletes, adds, and substitutes individual speech sounds
Print Awareness
- Tracks print from left to right
Alphabetic Knowledge
- Recognizes an increasing number of upper- and lowercase letters
- Produces letter forms in writing or with materials like Play-Doh
- Matches uppercase and lowercase letters
Emergent Writing
- Writes full name
- Organizes writing from left to right
Phonics/Spelling
- Connects letters to their sounds
- Sounds out words
- Spells phonetically
- Reads and writes simple sentences
- Correctly spells frequently used words
Book Behavior
- Reads independently
Edited and reprinted with permission from Reading for Our Lives by Maya Payne Smart, published by AVERY, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC.
Copyright © 2022 by Maya Payne Smart.
Get Reading for Our Lives: A Literacy Action Plan from Birth to Six
Learn how to foster your child’s pre-reading and reading skills easily, affordably, and playfully in the time you’re already spending together.
Get Reading for Our Lives Dear Maya,
I’m not comfortable reading. Is it better for me to tell a story to my kid, or is there something different I should do?
Maya’s Answer:
Thanks so much for raising this important question. Many parents who aren’t comfortable reading worry that they don’t have much to contribute to their child’s reading development. But your instinct to do what you can—tell stories and engage verbally—is perfect. The research is very clear: your voice, your engagement, and your questions during everyday conversation build vocabulary, knowledge, and curiosity that are a strong foundation for literacy.
Studies show that telling your child stories supports their vocabulary, narrative skills, and early literacy. This includes telling personal or family stories, cultural tales, or narratives you make up. When parents and children share stories, children get practice with new words, organizing ideas, and understanding how stories work—all of which are important for later reading. At the same time, it’s important to note that there is still relatively little research that specifically examines how these benefits play out for children of parents with low literacy.
You can also share picture books with your child, even if reading the words feels uncomfortable. In fact, there’s a strong base of research to support this approach. Think of the book and its illustrations as a springboard for conversation. Sit together, turn the pages, and talk about what you notice with the characters, emotions, and action in the pictures. You can describe what you see, ask what your child thinks is happening, or make up your own version of the story. This kind of back-and-forth talk builds your child’s vocabulary, comprehension, and connection with you. If getting books is a barrier, your local library, Little Free Libraries, or community book programs can help you keep books stocked at home. You can also check out these tips for getting cheap or free books for kids, tweens, and teens.
Asking questions is another easy, powerful way to grow your child’s language and thinking — no book required. Simple who, what, where, and when questions help toddlers learn new words and speak in longer sentences. As children get older, questions like why, how, and what do you think will happen next? encourage them to explain their ideas, tell stories, and talk about things beyond what they can see. Research shows this kind of back-and-forth talk boosts vocabulary, story understanding, memory, reasoning, and even social awareness.
Talking with your child during meals, walks, chores, or playtime strengthens their oral language, which is essential for reading. Children don’t just need to sound out words—they need to understand them. Your conversation gives them that understanding. Your responsiveness, warmth, and attention are doing real work.
I came up with a framework called the TALK Method to help parents remember to spend more time on brain-building interactions with their small kids. TALK stands for Taking turns, Answering questions, Labeling and pointing out objects (in this case, “labeling” just means saying the name of the item, not putting a physical label on it), and Keeping the conversation going. Learn more about the TALK Method here.
Also, even though you don’t feel comfortable reading to your child, you can encourage them to read to you. Your presence and attention send a powerful message: “Your reading matters.” You don’t have to read along, judge their performance, or correct any mistakes. Just listen patiently, show interest, and celebrate their effort. Your attention will build their confidence, motivation, and persistence—all key ingredients for reading success.
Of course, your child will need support from teachers and others to learn to read. But don’t discount what your words, your attention, and your stories can do. You are already supporting your child’s path to becoming a strong reader. You’ve got this.
Get Reading for Our Lives: The Urgency of Early Literacy and the Action Plan to Help Your Child
Learn how to foster your child’s pre-reading and reading skills easily, affordably, and playfully in the time you’re already spending together.
Get Reading for Our Lives
Dear Maya,
I’m a Spanish speaker. I can speak some English, but when reading or talking to my child, I prefer to do that in Spanish. Is that good or bad? Should I be reading in English?
Maya’s Answer:
[See below for an answer in Spanish.]
[A continuación encontrará la respuesta en español].
I’m so glad you asked this. Many families wrestle with this question.
The good news is: your desire to read and talk with your child in Spanish is wonderful. In fact, it’s one of the best things you can do for their development. When you use the language you know and love best, you give your child your fullest, most confident self—and all of the vocabulary, knowledge, and connection that comes with it. And that maximizes their language, literacy, and learning.
By talking and reading with your child in Spanish every day, you provide many benefits: natural expression, warmth, word exposure, and cultural knowledge. Reading together in Spanish introduces your child to new vocabulary, ideas, and stories that stretch their thinking. It also gives them valuable knowledge about how books work, including things like how to turn pages and how to track print from top to bottom and left to right. Talking and reading together also build closeness, attention, and trust—the relational foundation that helps children learn.
There is strong evidence that many important early literacy skills transfer with children from Spanish to English (and between other languages), especially the ability to notice and play with the sounds inside words—like syllables, rhymes, and beginning sounds. This matters because both Spanish and English are alphabetic languages, where letters represent sounds in writing. Children can build this skill, called phonological awareness, in any language. This means that when you sing, clap syllables, enjoy rhymes, or point out the first sounds in Spanish words, you’re helping your child with English, too. The skill becomes part of how your child thinks about language more broadly, and it supports learning to read in English later on.
Teaching your child to read in Spanish is beneficial, as well. Spanish has more consistent sound-to-letter patterns than English, which makes early sounding out (called “decoding”) clearer and easier for many children. Research shows that bilingual children who enter kindergarten with stronger reading skills in Spanish tend to make faster progress in English reading than bilingual children who start school with weaker literacy skills in Spanish—even when they speak English better. In other words, a strong literacy foundation in Spanish tends to support faster English reading development.
Using Spanish at home does not interfere with your child’s ability to learn English. Children can develop English through school, peers, and community interactions while continuing to grow in Spanish at home. You can help by connecting your child with teachers, caregivers, libraries, or community programs where they can hear and use English with confident speakers. Surrounding your child with people who feel confident in English ensures they, too, are giving your child their best.
In fact, Spanish—not English—is the language that’s more likely to be lost for bilingual children in the United States, so your commitment to using it at home is important. The more likely risk isn’t that your child will struggle in English because you prioritize Spanish. It’s that, by trying to force English, you could miss the opportunity to raise a truly bilingual child, which is a powerful gift.
Families who maintain high Spanish use at home support children’s growth in both languages, while shifting primarily to English at home often erodes Spanish without clear English gains. So keep going—what you’re doing matters.
Spanish Translation
Me alegra mucho que plantees esta pregunta. Muchas familias realmente luchan con esta pregunta.
Existe una tensión entre hablar y usar y leer en el idioma con el que te sientes más cómodo y dedicar tiempo para apoyar a tu hijo a aprender inglés, el idioma que está aprendiendo en la escuela y en otros entornos.
La buena noticia para ti es que tu deseo de leer y conversar con tu hijo en español es maravilloso, y, de hecho, es una de las mejores cosas que puedes hacer por su desarrollo.
Cuando utilizas el idioma que mejor conoces y más amas, le entregas a tu hijo lo mejor de ti, con todo el vocabulario, conocimiento y las conexiones que ello implica, y eso maximiza su alfabetización y aprendizaje del lenguaje.
Al conversar y leer con tu hijo cada día en español, le ofreces muchos beneficios: expresión natural, calidez, vocabulario, exposición y conocimiento cultural.
Leer juntos en español presenta palabras nuevas, ideas e historias que amplían su pensamiento; también le brinda conocimientos útiles que se traducen entre idiomas sobre cómo funcionan los libros. Cosas como pasar páginas o leer desde arriba hacia abajo, de izquierda a derecha.
Hablar y leer juntos crean cercanía, atención y confianza, base relacional que ayuda a los niños a aprender.
Sí, hay evidencia sólida de investigaciones durante años que muestran que muchas habilidades importantes, especialmente las tempranas para la lectura, se transfieren.
Existe evidencia sólida de investigación a lo largo de muchos años, que demuestra que los niños transfieren habilidades tempranas importantes entre el español y el inglés, especialmente la capacidad de notar y jugar con los sonidos dentro de las palabras, como las sílabas, las rimas y los sonidos iniciales y finales.
Esto importa porque tanto el español como el inglés son idiomas alfabéticos en los que las letras representan sonidos al escribir. Los niños no pueden leer si no distinguen esos sonidos y reconocen las letras que les corresponden al verlas.
Así los niños pueden desarrollar esta habilidad valiosa llamada conciencia fonológica, en cualquier idioma. Cuando cantas, aplaudes sílabas, disfrutas las rimas o señalas los primeros sonidos de palabras en español, también ayudas a tu hijo con el inglés.
Esa habilidad forma parte de cómo tu hijo piensa en el lenguaje y le ayudará a la lectura en inglés más adelante.
De acuerdo, enseñar a tu hijo a leer en español también resulta beneficioso.
El español presenta patrones de sonido y letras más uniformes que el inglés, lo que facilita la lectura inicial al decodificar palabras. Es más claro y fácil para muchos niños.
Investigaciones muestran que los niños bilingües que entran al jardín de infancia con lectura en español más sólida avanzan con mayor rapidez en la lectura del inglés que cuando comienzan la escuela con habilidades más débiles.
Los estudios muestran que los niños bilingües que ingresan al jardín de infancia con habilidades de lectura más sólidas en español tienden a avanzar más rápido la lectura en inglés que los niños bilingües que empiezan la escuela con habilidades de alfabetización en español más débiles, incluso cuando hablan mejor el inglés. Piensa en ello.
Los niños que ingresan como lectores más fuertes en español progresan más rápido en la lectura en inglés que incluso los niños con mayor fluidez oral en inglés en ese momento.
En otras palabras, una base sólida de alfabetización en español favorece un desarrollo más rápido de la lectura en inglés.
Usar español en casa no impide que su hijo aprenda inglés. Los niños aprenden inglés en la escuela, con sus compañeros y con la gente de la comunidad, mientras siguen creciendo en español en casa.
Puedes ayudar conectando a tu hijo con maestros, cuidadores, bibliotecas y programas comunitarios donde tenga oportunidades para escuchar bien y usar el inglés con hablantes seguros.
Rodear a tu hijo de personas que se sienten confiadas en inglés asegura que ellos le estén dando a tu hijo lo mejor.
De hecho, el español, no el inglés, es claramente el idioma que tiene gran probabilidad de perderse entre los niños bilingües en Estados Unidos.
Por eso tu compromiso de usarlo en casa es muy importante. El verdadero riesgo no es que tu hijo tenga problemas con el inglés si realmente ya priorizas el español. Es que al intentar forzar el inglés, aunque no sea tu fuerza para hablar o leer, puedes perder la oportunidad de criar a un niño bilingüe, lo cual es un regalo.
Las familias que mantienen el español como idioma de uso en casa apoyan el desarrollo de sus hijos en ambos idiomas. Si te enfocas más en el inglés en casa, cuando la habilidad no es tu fuerte, el español se debilita y no ves mejoras claras en el inglés.
Así continúa. Sigue hablando y leyendo con tu hijo en español; lo que haces importa.
Get Reading for Our Lives: The Urgency of Early Literacy and the Action Plan to Help Your Child
Learn how to foster your child’s pre-reading and reading skills easily, affordably, and playfully in the time you’re already spending together.
Get Reading for Our Lives What Makes a Great Children’s Book?
At the Reach Out and Read Annual Meeting in Verona, Wisconsin, I had the pleasure of hearing from Tessa Michaelson Schmidt, director of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her talk reminded me that this gem of a resource is available not only to librarians and educators—but to all of us.
The CCBC is a non-circulating library devoted to examining, studying, and researching children’s literature. While you can’t check books out, you can visit, browse, and learn. It’s open to the public, which means parents and caregivers can explore its incredible collection to discover books that inspire, entertain, and expand young minds. So if you’re in Wisconsin—or planning a visit—be sure to check it out.
You can also search its book lists and database of high-quality and diverse books online, then order from your local bookseller or check them out from your local library. The CCBC even hosts live talks exploring new books. Visit their calendar of events to find upcoming presentations or check out the archive of past events.
During her presentation, Schmidt shared how CCBC’s Charlotte Zolotow Award committee identifies outstanding picture books. Their criteria reveal a particular point of view:
- A child-centered focus—featuring young protagonists or issues that matter deeply to kids
- A strong, consistent sense of story, character, and setting
- Language that’s vivid, rhythmic, and engaging to read aloud
- Themes that broaden awareness of the world and human experience
- Stories that delight without preaching or moralizing
The best books, she noted, also carry a sense of honesty and integrity. They use carefully chosen words, fresh ideas, and humor to stretch readers’ imaginations—offering new ways to think about similarity, difference, and possibility.
Listening to her, I found myself reflecting on my own book-choosing habits as a parent. What criteria guide me when I’m picking books to share? The truth is, those standards change as our children grow.
If you’ve got a baby in your lap, a sturdy board book with bright pictures and simple words is perfect—something they can chew, tug, and turn while they listen to your voice.
When your child is a tween or teen, the “right” book may simply be one that holds their interest. My 14-year-old, for instance, gravitates toward stories about high school life, social issues, and the inner workings of the world. For her, a great book is one that feels relevant and real.
Every family’s list will look a little different—and that’s exactly as it should be. In fact, your list for each of your children may vary. The key is to be intentional: to think about what you want a book to offer your little one right now.
- If you’re building early literacy skills, alphabet books can bring their attention to letter shapes and nursery rhymes can help tune their ears to the sounds in words.
- If you’re nurturing identity, books whose characters reflect your child’s background and experiences may top your list.
- If you want to widen their worldview, stories that showcase other cultures, perspectives, and possibilities may fit the bill.
Whatever your goals, take a few minutes to jot down your own 3–5 criteria for what makes a “great” book for your child now. On the flip side, also list out what your personal “no-gos” are. For example, Schmidt gave the example of an excellent picture book with a well-told, compelling story that they did not recommend because it portrayed Asian characters with slanted eyes—a stereotypical and racist depiction.
When we take the time to examine our book choices through the lens of our values and teaching priorities, we move from passive book buyers to purposeful curators of learning.
Get Reading for Our Lives: The Urgency of Early Literacy and the Action Plan to Help Your Child
Learn how to foster your child’s pre-reading and reading skills easily, affordably, and playfully in the time you’re already spending together.
Get Reading for Our Lives 