If you know me personally or even follow me on IG you will learn very quickly that reading is a big part of my children's lives. Saying my kids love to read or have story time is an understatement. It's a running joke among our family that we'll punish someone by making them read to my kids because story time never ends with them. My kids prefer reading books over playing with toys or watching tv. Not to say they don't do the others because they definitely do. How did reading become so important to my children? That's simple, I made it a priority. One of them many unsolicited advice I received while my first child was in the womb was to read to him even if it's just once a week. I planed on doing that anyway so it was advice I gladly followed.
When my oldest son started to become more alert and was out of the "sleep all day" phase everyday I would read to him the only 4 children books we had at the time. To my surprise once he was able to crawl he would go and grab a book and bring it to me so he could be read to. Once we noticed that he was more into books than toys we stopped buying him toys and bought him books instead. When family and friends wanted to buy him a gift I always told them get him a book that's what he loves.
Once my second son came along I decided that since my oldest son liked reading so much I would buy him at least one book a month. Eventually we wound up with so many books that reading them all everyday wasn't an option since I was working long hours and then had to come home & juggle my time between 3 guys (my husband and two sons). I also noticed my oldest son was starting to memorize some parts of the books that we read more often than others.
Once I started staying home with the kids I eventually decided to pick 4 to 5 books that we would read daily and the others we would just save for occasional reading. I highly recommend this. My son is two and a half and since he was about 20 months he could basically read along with me. The repetition from reading the same books stuck with him.
Aside from the education factor reading helps my son overcome his shyness. My son is very shy so when friends and family come over we always tell them read a book to him to break the ice. Shockingly my youngest son picked up his big brothers reading habits.
I'm not a perfect mom & I don't pretend to be but one thing I did get right is making books a priority in my children's lives.
