The purpose of this exposure is to help their literacy emerge. It is important that people don't wait. Reading to children well before they can read for themselves teaches them the concepts of print. Such concepts include words and picture layout. Words run left to right, top to bottom and have spaces between them.
Pictures explain and illustrate a story.
Although children who are read to probably won't arrive at kindergarten their first day already able to read, they will be better prepared to start than other children, Spiegel said. They know more concepts. They're more apt to know colors. The purpose is to advance every child as far as they are able. Parents who have been persuaded about the importance of reading stretch all the way from Drew Johnston's mother in Belmont, N.C., to Chelsea Clinton's on Pennsylvania Avenue.