If you’re like me, then you love to read. I can get lost in a book for hours at a time if the story is well told. One thing that helped spur my love of reading was my mother starting me on the path to words at an early age. She encouraged books, and told me bedtime stories that she seemed to snatch out of the air, but now I know were in her head all along from the many books she had read as a girl. How then, do we as parents, make sure that are children are raised on a diet of words, rather than on a diet of video games and television? Well, there’s a few things you can do, and here are just some examples.

1. Read to Your Babies

You may think that newborns can’t understand what you’re saying to them, and you’re right. What they can respond to though, is sound. Any sound you make helps them in forming their vocabulary, and their understanding of things around them. Reading to them from the start increases your child’s ability to succeed as a reader.

2. Let Them Pick the Books

I’m not saying you should let your child go to the library and pick out a Stephen King novel when they’re six-years old, but you can take them to the kids section and let them choose the books that appeal to them. This will give them a sense of ownership. Knowing that they picked what to read all by themselves will go a long way toward them actually sitting down and understanding what’s on the page.

3. Keep Lots of Books Around

We always had books in our house, and in the most unlikely of places. The kitchen, the bathroom (okay, maybe that’s not so unlikely), the laundry room. Even on the front porch. There was always something for me to pick up and read, and I know my mother monitored what books she put out, and where. Having the material for your child to get their hands on is leading them on the right path to being a reader.

Those are just a few tips for you on how to raise your child to be a reader. There is nothing wrong with television and video games, but just think about making sure they pay as much attention to books as they do to everything else around them. Who knows, they might be a bestselling author one day because of it.