Homegrown Readers cover Every March schools kick off Reading Month by honoring Dr. Seuss’ birthday. You’ll see green eggs and ham all over the place. Many schools sponsor “read ins” where kids can come to school with pj’s on and blankets in hand so they can cuddle up with a good book and read all day. These are great ways to encourage kids to read every day.

We now know that literacy skills begin at birth. That means the exposure young children have to books and book knowledge will, in great part, dictate the child’s success in learning to read a few year’s later. Skills such as letter and sound recognition, color and number identification, recognizing common objects are other early learning skills are gleaned from time spent hearing stories and relating to the information in books.

If you’re a parent who hasn’t yet fallen in love with read-aloud times with your children, give them a try. Throw out ideas of dutifully reading boring stories from the olden days. Today’s children’s literature is rich and varied–you’ll be sure to find something you enjoy as much as your kids do.

Parents are primary role models for literacy. Kids love what their parents love. If you enjoy books and spend quality time with your child reading them, you give your child a huge boost in literacy learning. In addition to read-aloud times, take advantage of the super kids’ reading websites available such as www.starfall.com where kids can learn and play at the same time.

If you want to gather a group of parents to discuss early reading skills for your children, grab a copy of Homegrown Readers on Amazon.com and use the handy key ideas from each chapter plus the discussion questions at the back of the book. It’s never too late to build a literacy-rich home.