If you are a parent, I'm sure you've heard that you should read to your children for 15 minutes a day to build reading and comprehension skills as well as (hopefully) contributing to their love of reading. As a parent, have you considered the cost of not reading-of illiteracy in your child? In the May/June issue of Todays Christian Woman, there is a story profiling Sandy Welch and her husband, Greg, who helped create a library for inner city children. The article quotes statistics given by Begin to Read.com Consider the following.
Two-thirds of students who cannot read proficiently by the end of fourth grade will end up in jail or on welfare.
85 percent of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile system are functionally illiterate.
Illiteracy and crime are closely related. The Department of Justice states "The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence and crime is welded to reading failure." More than 70 percent of inmates in Amercia's prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level.
Reading is a proactive measure to take in the prevention of certain predictable future failures. However, don't let this be your sole motivating factor in reading with your child. Now that you are armed with the knowledge of what you may be preventing, feel free to snuggle up tonight with your child in one arm, a classic in the other, and open your childs world to the gift of readinhg.
