4 Myths About Kids’ Reading Habits

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Unlike learning to speak, learning to read is not a natural process. With speech, children begin acquiring language skills almost as soon as they are born. They will pick up on the sounds that their parents and siblings use and begin to mimic those sounds. Slowly, those sounds resolve into words that have meaning. Thus, a child learns to speak.

Reading, however, is technically unnatural. Speech is the process of millions of years of evolution and a biological phenomenon. At its heart, human speech is based on the same processes as birdsong, lion roars, dog barks and chattering squirrels. It is a natural, biological form of communication. Written language, however, is purely manmade and a very recent phenomenon. Written language is not a universal rule either. Only half of the more than 7,000 human languages spoken today have a written form.

Reading and writing are not something a child can acquire. They are things that must be taught, and reading is not always easy to learn or teach. The sheer number of myths that surround the process of learning to read do not help either. Well-intentioned parents might end up buying into these sometimes damaging falsehoods. Here are four myths about kids’ reading habits that are not true.

"Your kids are too young or too fidgety."

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When adults read, they tend to settle into one comfortable position and stay that way for a long period of time. This is why adults who love to read tend to have a specific “reading spot” which could be a chair in the family room, a couch with a throw blanket, a pile of pillows against the headboard or a particularly comfortable patch of floor. If adults cannot find somewhere comfortable to sit or lay, they do not tend to read for a terribly long period of time. Reading, to them, requires stillness.

Children do not do well at holding still, just ask any elementary school teacher. Young children are fidgety, high energy and when they are feeling stir-crazy, they have the attention span of a gnat. As such, it can often seem like children are too young to listen to a parent reading aloud. This, however, is not true. A child who is dancing, clapping or chewing on their toes is likely still listening or at least still aware of the story they are being read. Stop reading if the child starts to cry, but do not sweat it if they are trying to do summersaults during “The Cat in the Hat.”

"There's no point to endlessly rereading the same book."

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Children do not get tired of things as quickly as adults. Children can play the same game of tag for hours on end. They can watch their favorite movie every night, and most have a favorite song that they can listen to on loop for ages. It is unsurprising, then, that children also tend to have a favorite book. Unfortunately for the parents who are reading to the child, the child wants that book read over and over and over and over. It never gets old for the child. The parent, on the other hand, is debating “losing” the book for a few weeks.

While rereading a book can get tedious for parents very quickly, repetition actually has a number of benefits for the child listening to the story. Rereading a familiar story allows children to recognize new words and language patterns. It also helps them increase their understanding of the story since they are already familiar with the basic premise.

"Make them stop telling the wrong story."

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Children who are not yet reading on their own sometimes want to make up their own story to go with a book’s detailed illustrations rather than listen to the words on the page. For parents, this may seem like it defeats the purpose of reading a book to their child. After all, the child does not even want to hear the story on the page, so what is the point? When a child tells their own story, however, they are practicing more than their creativity. Telling their own story requires them to build their narrative fluency which is an important part of reading. Storytelling also helps children develop their empathy as they try to explain their character’s emotions, and it helps them broaden their understanding of what is real and what is fantasy. For parents who have a budding storyteller, wordless picture books are useful resources to help children build multiple stories.

"Stop reading to them when they can read on their own."

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For many parents, reading to their child is just a temporary role meant to prepare the child for reading on their own. When the child becomes able to read on their own, many parents assume their job is done. They no longer need to or no longer should read to their child. This is not true. Children do not age out of being read to, and reading aloud to a literate child has benefits. For most children, their reading level does not catch up with their listening level until they are a teenager. As such, they can listen to more complex and complicated books than they can read. A parent who continues to read to their child can expose them to ideas beyond their reading level but still within their maturity level. Continuing to read to a child also helps keep reading fun rather than frustrating and forms an excellent opportunity for parents to bond with their children.