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I'm using this as a measure of how scholarly the parents are. Kids imitate what you do, so I wasn't thinking about it in the context of a learning program, but

I'm using this as a measure of how scholarly the parents are. Kids imitate what you do, so I wasn't thinking about it in the context of a learning program, but rather being part of a house where everyone reads all the time. It's useful to know if it's the kind of place where reading to the child would take extra effort, or where not reading to the child would take extra effort.

roel_v 16y ago
Maybe I just can't understand yet until our daughter is born, but I don't see myself yet sitting there reading to an infant who can't even sit up straight by herself, let alone understand what I'm reading to her. I consider our family quite scholarly, with both of us being (at least part time) academics and my wife being a professor. Maybe I'm focusing on the literal words in your post too much and you're meaning it in a broader sense, more as in how much exposure to books the children get and how much they see their parents read. I guess from that point of view I can understand and agree. (an interesting tidbit I remember, it may be from the Freakonomics book or blog, is a study that showed that children in households with many books did better at school; so some city council thought it wise to give all new mothers a few shelves worth of books, in an attempt to boost performance of all children in the city. This turned out (iirc) to have no effect at all, which is rather obvious to me, as you may have the book in the house, but you still need to read them). Which is exactly your point I guess ;)
- JabavuAdams 16y ago
  > Maybe I'm focusing on the literal words in your post too much and you're meaning it in a broader sense, more as in how much exposure to books the children get and how much they see their parents read. I guess from that point of view I can understand and agree. Yes, that's right. "Reading" to our infant consisted of her lolling in our laps and attempting to lick the board-book pages, while we maybe got to read a page or two. Later on, she'd bat at the pages, trying to imitate our page-turning. The only difference between a book and a chew-toy was that we'd compliment her on reading and point out when we were reading too. If you don't think you'd want to make a big deal about reading to your child, then don't fake it. It sounds like she won't lack for opportunity or encouragement in your household. P.S. The best parenting advice I ever got was to ignore parenting advice I don't agree with, but to respond to all parenting advice with "Thanks, we'll try that". People want to help, it's just that they're often wrong (for you and your child). UPDATE> On a tangent: it's amazing how significant what we choose to remark on is for little kids. We would point out colours of shapes, and praise our daughter when she got the colour right. Now colours are extremely significant. I.e. every object must be described as (colour, name). I wonder what the result would have been if we'd started with some other property. She also has to have us roll up her pants when wearing boots, because once we mentioned that she should roll up her pants so she wouldn't trip. Now it's dogma -- roll up pants or else meltdown. It's neat to see her little world-model forming: you don't trip because of a physical obstruction to your toe. No, you trip because your pants aren't rolled up.

roel_v 16y ago

Maybe I just can't understand yet until our daughter is born, but I don't see myself yet sitting there reading to an infant who can't even sit up straight by herself, let alone understand what I'm reading to her. I consider our family quite scholarly, with both of us being (at least part time) academics and my wife being a professor. Maybe I'm focusing on the literal words in your post too much and you're meaning it in a broader sense, more as in how much exposure to books the children get and how much they see their parents read. I guess from that point of view I can understand and agree. (an interesting tidbit I remember, it may be from the Freakonomics book or blog, is a study that showed that children in households with many books did better at school; so some city council thought it wise to give all new mothers a few shelves worth of books, in an attempt to boost performance of all children in the city. This turned out (iirc) to have no effect at all, which is rather obvious to me, as you may have the book in the house, but you still need to read them). Which is exactly your point I guess ;)

JabavuAdams 16y ago
> Maybe I'm focusing on the literal words in your post too much and you're meaning it in a broader sense, more as in how much exposure to books the children get and how much they see their parents read. I guess from that point of view I can understand and agree. Yes, that's right. "Reading" to our infant consisted of her lolling in our laps and attempting to lick the board-book pages, while we maybe got to read a page or two. Later on, she'd bat at the pages, trying to imitate our page-turning. The only difference between a book and a chew-toy was that we'd compliment her on reading and point out when we were reading too. If you don't think you'd want to make a big deal about reading to your child, then don't fake it. It sounds like she won't lack for opportunity or encouragement in your household. P.S. The best parenting advice I ever got was to ignore parenting advice I don't agree with, but to respond to all parenting advice with "Thanks, we'll try that". People want to help, it's just that they're often wrong (for you and your child). UPDATE> On a tangent: it's amazing how significant what we choose to remark on is for little kids. We would point out colours of shapes, and praise our daughter when she got the colour right. Now colours are extremely significant. I.e. every object must be described as (colour, name). I wonder what the result would have been if we'd started with some other property. She also has to have us roll up her pants when wearing boots, because once we mentioned that she should roll up her pants so she wouldn't trip. Now it's dogma -- roll up pants or else meltdown. It's neat to see her little world-model forming: you don't trip because of a physical obstruction to your toe. No, you trip because your pants aren't rolled up.