Reading is a very important skill of which everyone should have the ability to do whether it 's used for success in today 's world, or for enjoyment to escape into all different kinds of enchanting stories. At a young age, I was always read to by my step mom every night before I went to bed. She didn’t show the pages to me because the books weren 't picture books. She always read books which had a higher reading level than I possessed. In 3rd grade my teacher noticed I had trouble with reading comprehension, so she gave me the first Harry Potter book with a read along tape. Into the second book “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”, I no longer needed to listen to the tapes to understand what I was reading. When …show more content…
I didn’t have the best lifestyle after my step mom and father got divorced so I threw myself into books to cope with the changes in my life. Natalie Fitzgerald says "Books are there for us to escape into someone else 's life, and forget about your own problems."(341) This is exactly why I would get lost into the Harry Potter series by JK Rowling at the age of 9. I still to this day love the wizarding world. I am now re-reading the series, but now I read it to my son every night before he goes to bed just as my step mom read to me. I want him to experience reading at a young age, so he can benefit from it in the long run and fall in love with reading as a whole. If it wasn’t for my teacher helping me with comprehension, I would never have fallen in love with my favorite book series. I probably wouldn’t have started reading to my son as soon as he was born. I believe that books are important in a child 's first years, it will mold their attitude towards reading, and I believe their grades will reflect. In the essay "Understanding the Importance of Reading" by Natalie Fitzgerald she says "I wasn 't a big fan of reading at first, I still hate reading that don 't interest me" I also didn’t like reading, I would much rather been read to. When life is overwhelming the best stress release is getting lost in the pages of a good book Natalie Fitzgerald …show more content…
Richard Rodriguez author of the essay “The Lonely, Good Company of Books”, states “Reading was, at the best, a chore. I needed to look up whole paragraphs of words in a dictionary.” (294) If parents start teaching children what words mean, how to use them and how to infer when reading before school children will benefit once in school by having a broader vocabulary. Read books that relate to their favorite cartoon or simple car games to teach child to read street signs. Another way is to have your child read the directions for the preparation of dinner when they want to help make an appetizing plentiful meal for the family to enjoy. One more benefit of teaching your child to read is with enhanced reading skills also come improved writing