Read… to someone.

Read to your children, read to your loved ones, read to your friends.

Reading to your children is a time-honored tradition, and will get its own section later on, regarding books in the home. Briefly, children who are read to learn to read earlier than their peers, have a broader vocabulary and greater interest in learning, and they additionally have an opportunity given to them: Time with their parents.

One of my earliest memories in life is sitting with my mother and my father reading. I was small enough to still be on their laps, and hey would read a page an di would read a page. I don’t remember “learning,” though I am sure I did. I don’t remember it being a chore, I remember it being fun. I consider myself very close to my parents, and I value those memories. I am inviting you to help your children form the same memories of their own, learning how to read along with you, seeing you value books and information on the page.

More than children there is value in reading to a loved one. My wife an di share both audiobooks, win which we will do an activity together while listening, or we will read to one another. Reading to one another is in a more engaging way to read the material. While it is not always the right way to read for me, sometimes I want to move along at a faster clip than I can speak, the act of practicing intonation, inflection, and just conversing about the material as we read it, can be its own fun and rewarding experience.

We stop, we discuss and digest the piece, we will pull up other pieces we have read for comparison or debate. We will declare what we like and what we don’t like about the story as we go. Sometimes, no doubt we head down crazy paths the authors didn’t intended us to, but the experience is very distinct from reading alone, reading out loud even to myself, and I can highly recommend it to everyone.

Read to your significant other. Read to a stranger if you must but go read to someone.