Starting your child reading early is a gift

The more children observe adults reading, the more they’ll want to imitate that behaviour. 

WHETHER it’s a sentence from the sports page or a street sign, a poster about a missing kitten or a recipe from a cookbook, it’s important that young children see parents reading aloud what interests them.

This is especially so when children are aged three to seven, a stage when the brain is getting ready to begin to read, says child psychologist David Carey.