Breaking news: Reading to your kids is super important.

Like, duh. I recently saw this aritcle that contained some staggering statistics about the impact of parents reading to their children. The single most influential factor in determining a child’s early education success is being read to at home. Just the number of books in the child’s home had DOUBLE the impact of the father’s education. Kid’s that are read to regularly are more communicative, read faster, and overall perform better on average than kids who don’t hear books read aloud.

A few weeks ago, I read an article about how kids who are read 5 books a day will enter kindergarten having heard 1.4 million more words than kids who were never read to. source

Sometimes, when I hear these studies about how important it is to read to your kids, I think “Sorry dudes, y’all gonna be sociopaths then, because if I have to read Goodnight Moon one more time I’m going to drive my car off the road.”

But when I read the study about what 5 books a day can do, I thought to myself, “That’s doable.”

5 books. That’s not sitting and reading for hours. That’s picking up a book a few times a day. Can something so simple really make that big of a difference?

I’ve been keeping track in my head, making sure we read at least 5 books a day, for the past month, and the benefits have been astounding.

5 Benefits of Reading Aloud to your Kids

1. Feeling Like The Best Mom on Earth.

At the end of the day, I read my kid some MFing books! Maybe they only ate goldfish and granola bars, but we READ together. Mom of the year, gimme that trophy thankyouverymuch. But really.

All joking aside, it feels so good to know that every day, you had a moment with your kids. No matter the weather, the sick days, the tantrums, the craziness of your day- you read together. You shared a memory, you touched, you connected.  And that feels really, really good.

2. Better Behavior

Taking some time every single day to “fill their tank” does wonders for my kids’ behavior. Just 5 minutes of snuggling up and reading a book helps us connect, reminds me that I like them, makes your children feel special, and hits the “reset” button on both my patience and my kids’ annoying-ness. Nate has played better by himself and been more imaginative in the time that we have been doing this reading experiment

3. Learning Lessons

We have several books I bought to help Nate navigate something tricky happening in his life. We have books about having a new baby, books about having big feelings, books about being afraid of messes, books about bad dreams. Reading about how a fictional character handles the things that Nate is experiencing helps give him the tools to get through his own struggles.

Bless my poor child of my OCD, he is terrified of getting messy. He hates spills and messes and loses his mind if he gets dirty. I got this fantastic Edward Gets Messy book, and we read that book multiple times a day for weeks. You could see his little brain trying to process that Edward learned that it is okay to get messy. And Nate has calmed down SO MUCH about getting messy, and that is large part thanks to that book.

4. Learning Words

My 15 month old LOVES lift-the-flap books with animals, and is starting to imitate animal sounds. Nate hears big words like “especially” and tells me that the weather is especially fine, and that adorableness alone makes reading worthwhile.

We subconsciously use “kid speak” when we talk to our kids, and reading books exposes them to language they wouldn’t hear in normal conversation. If I relied on our daily life to teach my child about different animals, he would only know about dogs, cats, and birds. But thanks to his favorite look-and-find book, he knows more animals than I do.

5. Connection

Before this little experiment, I read books to Nate every night before bed, and then randomly when he wanted me to read him a book. We read often, but days would definitely go by where the only book we read was a book before bed.

Now, we read constantly. Nate brings me a book in the morning, then we read while Max drinks his morning milk. We read after Nate finishes his breakfast, before Max’s nap, while dinner is cooking, and anytime the mood strikes! As a result, we are reconnecting several times per day.

Snuggling up and enjoying an activity together has changed our days. I am not being dramatic or exaggerating. Before this experiment, if I told Nate, “After you eat your breakfast, we can read a book!”, he probably wouldn’t have really cared. Now, he quickly finishes his task, hops into my lap, and is thrilled to spend some time reading together. Every morning he bounds into my room with a few books, gets under the covers, and we read. It is truly one of the highlights of my day.

So how do you make it happen? How do you add reading books to your routine without getting burned out? What do you do if your kids aren’t interested in reading?

5 Tips to Make Reading Happen

Be Patient

My 1 year old can only handle about 3 words per page before he’s dying to turn the page. And that’s just fine. Sometimes he sits in my lap for several board books in a row, sometimes he leaves to go investigate a tuft of dog fur in the carpet. It’s all just fine. I stay on the floor, I stay reading the book, and usually he comes back! The baby also has the benefit of hearing me read the longer books to Nate. It took awhile for Nate to have the attention span to listen to books with long stories and lots of words per page, and now he loves them. Start where you are.

Let the Kids Take the Lead

Let your kids choose the books. Stop and let them ask questions (even when it drives you nutsssss). Read the same book 5 times in a row. Go to the library and let them pick absolutely whatever they want. I love to buy books for any gift-giving occasion and love to add new books that we’ll be excited to read to our library.

Choose the Right Books

And choose a lot of them! We have books in both kids’ rooms, in the living room, in my room, in the bathroom… Books everywhere! We have baby books, toddler books, bigger kid books, adult books- books are everywhere. Find books you enjoy reading, and your kids enjoy hearing.

Nate loves the Berenstain Bears. If I tried to read a Berenstain Bears book to Max, it would be a complete failure. Sheesh, those books have so many words. Max would rip the pages, get bored, and we wouldn’t make it through the first page. But when I pull out “Never Touch a Monster” or “Where’s Spot?”, he sits happily and wants to read them again and again. I introduce longer books and books without things to touch and feel, and he is learning to enjoy the story, but we still spend most of our time on the books he loves. Here are some of our favorite books!

Dear Zoo     Where’s Spot   Never Touch a Monster   Click Clack Moo   Ten Little Ladybugs   You Are My I Love you     Alphabet (and all Matthew Van Fleet books)   I Love You, Stinky Face   On The Night You Were Born   Little Blue Truck

Room on the Broom   Pout Pout Fish   Harry the Dirty Dog   If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, and all other Laura Numeroff books    We’re Going On a Bear Hunt   Harold and the Purple Crayon   Ellie   Are You My Mother?   Press Here   My Fabulous Fairy Tale Collection The BIG Book of Berenstain Bears Beginner Books

Make it Part of Your Routine

     Think about your daily life and when might be a natural time to add reading a book. For us, reading a couple of books first thing in the morning is wonderful. It’s a great way to connect and start the day. If your morning is too hectic, maybe try reading books at breakfast.

Reading at the end of meal time has been an excellent way to get my pokey eaters to finish up, and helps us transition into nap time and bed time routines. We always read before nap and bed. I used to just read 1 book and then throw them in their beds. Now, I try to allow extra time for more books. It helps the kids wind down and calm down before sleeping, and the snuggle time is so special to all of us.

Be a Family That Reads

Let your kids see you reading. Talk about books often and be excited about reading. Add silly voices and characters and play while you read. When your child is upset or clingy, take a few minutes to snuggle and read, to associate reading with happy, comforting feelings.

Once you start reading often to your kids, it becomes natural to reach for a book whenever you have a moment. But at first, you have to be intentional. Keep track in your head for a few weeks, and try to find time to squeeze in 5 books a day. I promise you’ll be amazed at the positive impact this simple act has on your family!

Let’s make this a movement! Post a picture reading to your kids, or of your favorite book to read with your kids, on Facebook or Instagram and use the hashtag #5booksadaychallenge and I will choose one winner to send some of our favorite books!