Reading in The Screen Age

I recently came across a 2014 Jessica Potts Lahey interview with Stephen King where they discussed absorbing the "grammatical principles of one's native language." He said, "Reading is the key, though. A kid who grows up hearing, "It don't matter to me" can only learn doesn't if he/she reads it over and over again." I don't know why this struck me so forcefully. Perhaps because I've been spending a lot of time in nursery school classrooms doing research for a new book on parenting preschoolers. Very young children are so eager to be read to and yet they're being raised in the Screen Age. The number of kids in strollers with devices in their hands and the number of parents scrolling during Circle Time is alarming. Reading is the gateway, for preschoolers, to vocabulary development, the acquisition of social skills, an understanding of empathy, and a bolstering of mental health. And we know for sure that, for older children, reading is the key to doing well in the college application process. But maybe it struck me so dramatically because, as King implies here, reading is a great equalizer. For underresourced children of all ages -- preschooler to high schooler, reading can be the leg up, the assist, that makes the difference in succeeding in school and in life. Just read...

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