Reading is one of the most fundamental skills a child can develop through their education, but opportunities to practice these literacy skills exist well beyond the classroom. Incorporating reading practice into your family’s daily routine helps children expand their vocabulary, strengthen their comprehension abilities, and improve their overall communication skills. While curriculum and classroom learning help build the foundation for children’s literacy, reading at home helps turn literacy into a lifelong skill.

Why Reading Matters

According to the National Literacy Institute, 54% of adults in the US read below a sixth grade reading level, highlighting the very real need for foundational literacy skills starting at a young age. Practicing reading at home and outside the classroom can help close this literacy gap and nurture lifelong readers!

For younger children who are still developing their basic literacy skills, reading books together at home introduces them to new vocabulary words, sentence structures, and ways to organize ideas. As kids age and begin independent reading, they can further develop the ability to comprehend texts’ deeper meanings, identify underlying themes, and evaluate longer passages.

One of the great benefits of reading is that these literacy skills can be applied far beyond simply English or Language Arts classes. Reading comprehension and fluency is key for understanding concepts in history, science, and even math, and reading skills regularly correlate to academic success across multiple disciplines.

Additionally, reading helps encourage curiosity in children. Whether it’s reading a book about a historical event they may not have heard of before or reading a fiction novel about a character that is nothing like them, literacy is a way to expand children’s worldview and introduce them to diverse perspectives.

Incorporating Reading at Home

Finding ways to include daily reading into your family’s routine can help build your child’s literacy skills significantly, and maybe even introduce them to a love of reading! For younger children, reading to them throughout the day and/or at bedtime helps build early comprehension skills even if they aren’t quite ready to begin reading independently.

As children age, introducing them to local public libraries or encouraging them to check out books about topics they’re interested in can help develop their curiosity around reading and give them the independence to dig deeper into their personal interests. Having a healthy balance at home between screentime and reading time can likewise help make literacy a daily activity as opposed to a chore.

Here at St. John Amelith School, staff and administrators see firsthand the positive benefits that reading brings to children’s lives and academic success. By fostering a love of reading, teachers and parents alike can help children develop critical comprehension and literacy skills while also inspiring curiosity about the world around them.