Building Young Readers, One Story at a Time

As a clinical psychologist who has studied children's mental health for over four decades, I am often asked by parents whether it is too late to raise a reader. Their child is seven, nine or twelve, has seen screens since infancy and reaches for YouTube before a book. It is never too late, but it does take deliberate effort.

The competition

Consider what books are up against. A smartphone app is designed by teams of PhDs to capture and hold attention, using infinite variability, dopamine triggers and social validation. A paperback book asks a child to sit still, focus and imagine. The contest is uneven, but books can still win if they get some help.

Four things that work

1. Read aloud at every age. Keep going with teenagers. Shared reading builds an intimacy that no screen can replicate.

2. Let them choose. If your child wants to read the same book thirty times, or a book you find silly, or a book below their reading level, let them. Reading that brings pleasure builds readers.

3. Make books visible. Screens are hidden in pockets, so put books where children can see them: on tables, in cars, by the bed and in the bathroom. Physical presence matters.

4. Model it. If you want a child who reads, be a parent who reads. Children are observant, and they notice when the adults around them are engaged with books.

The deeper point

My book From Freud to Zuckerberg and Back argues that we have outsourced too much of childhood to algorithms. Books are one of the simplest ways to take some of it back. A story shared between a parent and a child is an act of resistance.