The best part of reading to kids? It’s between the lines, author says

A parent could read to a child Rosemary Wells’ picture book “Hand in Hand” – a poem of 16 short lines, including “Be my teacher from day one. Be my sky, my moon, my sun.” – in just a couple of minutes.

A parent should not.

Read it, yes. But Connecticut-based author and illustrator Wells, who’s coming to Stanislaus and Merced counties early next month, would shudder at the thought of racing through it. Especially if said rush is to get the parent or child back to viewing a TV or smart phone or tablet.

Wells, who over 45 years has published more than 120 books, will read to children at libraries and talk to parents, teachers and caregivers about the need to do the same. “What the adults should expect is really a pep talk on the importance of reading – and I mean real books, not iPads – to children,” she said in a phone interview Friday. “There is a kind of trend out there to believe that children learn from iPads, which they do not, and that it’s the modern equivalent to reading a book, and it is not.”

When a tablet “reads” a picture book to a child, or when a CD tells a story while a child follows along with a book, “there is no person involved, no intimacy to the voice,” Wells said. “Reading to children involves a great deal more than just reading the words. It’s pausing to point things out, to look at and talk about the pictures. No iPad can do that.”

Wells’ beautiful illustrations are well worth taking time to explore while reading with children, said Anne Britton of Friends of the Modesto Library, which worked with the library’s children’s department to bring her here.

Wells has been on the library’s radar for a long time, Britton said, and the children’s department tried several years ago to have her come to Modesto, but it didn’t work out. “Her books are very popular, and she does beautiful artwork of very soft, fluffy characters like Max and Ruby,” Britton said. “... One of her early books, ‘Noisy Nora,’ (1973) is a classic.

“She also has been an advocate for early literacy, for parents as the first teachers for their children. It’s been a while, but she did a book, ‘Read to Your Bunny,’ (1997) that addresses parents on the importance of reading to your child from birth.”

Successfully reading aloud to a child is not something every parent or guardian or teacher knows how to do, and that’s OK, Wells said. Libraries and bookstores regularly have story times with people who are wonderful at reading aloud, she said, and it’s a great outing for a parent to learn what those readers do.

“You want to hold the child’s attention and get the child to say, ‘Again,’ ” Wells said. Reading aloud should be interactive. “You point out what your children will recognize. You ask them questions. You let them interrupt and ask questions. It’s not to be rammed through or rushed through.”

The benefits of reading to children aren’t just touchy-feely, she said. She talks with her adult audiences about evidence from the American Academy of Pediatrics Association that reading to children stimulates their brain activity. “It is now proven beyond any doubt, with live interactive MRIs (magnetic resonance imaging) ... video you can see of children’s brains when they’re having stories read to them,” she said.

Children who are read to and otherwise stimulated by parents talking, singing and playing with them are far more able to achieve a level playing field after kindergarten than children who are not, Wells said. The window to strengthen brain development is during the first five years of life – particularly the first three, she said.

After that, it begins to close, Wells said, and children who haven’t received that steady stimulation face a big deficit in their ability to learn later on.

This story was originally published March 24, 2017 at 3:57 PM with the headline "The best part of reading to kids? It’s between the lines, author says."