When my children were young, one of our most important family rituals was reading together at bedtime. Sometimes my husband and I would each read separately to a daughter. Sometimes we all gathered together to read… and sometimes they read to me when I fell asleep while reading! Certain, extra-special books created a shared language and experience that is just as alive today as it was then (both daughters are now young adults).

As new parents, neither my husband nor I were aware of research on the benefits of reading to children; we are both avid readers, and I suppose if we had thought about it, we would have said that we wanted to pass a love of reading on to our children. But really, we made this special time for the sheer pleasure of it. Ellen Handler Spitz captures this well, in her book Inside Picture Books:

“Reading aloud is an activity fraught with advantages – for grown-ups as well as youthful listeners – and it is a quintessentially relational activity … through the shared cultural experiences of reading aloud and being read to, adults and young children – in moments of intensely pleasurable rapport – participate in the traditional task of passing on values from one generation to the next.” 

This one simple practice promotes language development, as well as cognitive, communication, and listening skills, laying the foundation for academic success. Share this act of faith at home and through projects in your congregation or your wider community. public and school libraries do much to make reading available to all families; find a role as an advocate or a volunteer. Share your story of how you engage in the act of faith of reading with children!

Additional Activities

Download the Fall 2013 UUWorld Families Pages (pdf) for more activities.

Originally published in the “Families Weave a Tapestry of Faith” insert in The UUWorld.