Why Is Reading So Important Anyway?

Through centuries of technological advancement, regardless of available alternative media, being a good reader still conveys a huge benefit to kids in success in school and adults for success in life.

It opens worlds and expands horizons. “Reading is a discount ticket to everywhere.”

Reading is an extremely complex human behavior, and aversion to reading can be multifactorial. What many don’t consider is that there are numerous visual skills and visual processing conditions that can make reading a lot harder for some kids. Part of being creative in getting kids to read is making sure you’ve removed all the barriers to reading that you can, including treating conditions like Convergence Insufficiency that make reading harder and less enjoyable. A children’s eye specialist like Dr. Jesse Willingham can help determine if vision is getting in your child’s way.

child reading

LEARN ABOUT VISION PROBLEMS THAT INTERFERE WITH LEARNING

Here are a few sneaky ways to get kids to read.

1. There’s a lot of controversy as to the risks and benefits of video games, but there are certainly games out there that require reading to be successful. Finding games you can play with your child that require reading to do well can be fun and helpful. I learned a lot of new vocabulary playing Pokemon as a kid and asking my parents what different words meant.

2. Reading to children is very important, but don’t think you can pull a hard switch from you reading everything to your child reading everything overnight! If you read to your child, every now and them, point to a word and and ask them, “what is that word? I can’t remember.” This get’s them involved. Bonus points for having them follow with their finger while you read. This teaches the left-to-right form of reading, an ocular-motor skill that we’re rarely explicitly taught but is. instrumentally for successful reading.

3. When going out to eat, give your child a menu. Instead of telling them their options, help them read it off the menu. This can help encourage visualization while reading, which helps reading comprehension and makes it multi-sensory (taste and smell are powerful memory-enhancers).

4. If your child has spelling tests, use flash cards to cut spelling words into puzzle pieces. This makes spelling practice more fun and emphasizes the visual form of the word, making its spelling more concrete and less abstract.

read with your baby!

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” — Dr. Seuss

Children have trouble vocalizing visual issues. They only know their own perspective and don’t know if it is abnormal. Instead, they just know they don’t like reading because it’s hard. It is hard! Their eyes might be getting in their way rather than helping them.

If a child doesn’t like reading, ask them these questions:

Do the words look like they are moving on the page?
Do the words look double on the page?

If they answer yes, find a developmental optometrist near you. This online quiz has a few more questions to ascertain if your child may have a vision problem. A pediatric optometrist could change their life!

https://www.covd.org/page/QOLSurvey

Vision evaluations are essential for children