“Even six-week-old babies like the feeling of closeness when a parent or grandparent, or other caretaker reads to them. When children find out that reading with a loving adult can be a warm, happy experience, they begin to build a lifelong love of reading.”

A Child Becomes a Reader: Proven Ideas from Research for Parents

National Institute for Literacy, 2006

“Reading aloud to children is the single most important activity for building knowledge required for eventual success in reading.”

National Academy of Education’s Commission on Reading, 1985

“By reading to infants, parents can help their children develop an understanding about print at an early age as infants learn to make connections between words and meaning. By engaging children at an early age in reading and allowing children to observe those around them in reading activities, parents can help foster a lifelong passion for reading that leads to benefits in all areas of development as children grow older.”

National Association for the Education of Young Children, 1997

“Reading to children is one of the best ways to promote positive attitudes toward reading and to give children the sounds and words of literacy and reading. Beginning at birth, all children should be read to with regularity and enthusiasm.”

Early Literacy and Beginning to Read: A Position Statement of the Southern Early Childhood Association

Southern Early Childhood Association, 2002

“In a study conducted of kindergartners, those who were read to at least three times a week as they entered kindergarten were almost twice as likely to score in the top 25 percent of literacy tests than children who were read to less than three times a week.”

Early Childhood Longitudinal Study

National Institute for Literacy, 2006