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Comment by zaroth | Hacker News Reader

Read to your child for 30-60 minutes a day from Day 1 and by Kindergarden there are books piled on every flat surface, books piled in the car, books in the refrigerator, and you won’t be able to tear the book from their tiny little hands.

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Anecdotally, I've seen many parents do this with mixed results. YMMV.

Yes. Every child is different.

Indeed, ours is 9 and has been read to every single night - rarely reads books. Constantly is on his laptop doing things I think are far better than just reading, so I'm largely ok with it. Too much youtube "crap" sometimes, but he usually balances himself out ok - a skill people heavily need that isn't often taught.

> Constantly is on his laptop

Not a judgement at all, but in the rocks paper scissors game of life, the iPad will always trump the book if the kids are given the option.

In our house the iPad and iMac are fairly strictly rationed. YouTube is never self directed, only family AirPlay time, like watching SpaceX launches and stuff like that.

The books just have to be put down at mealtimes. Sometimes I catch them reading under the table and pretend to be angry about it, but they’ve got me allll figured out, (and I love it).

I think the shift to self directed reading will happen at different ages, depending on a million factors.

But there are just so many amazing books to read out there and I think we are so hard-wired for story telling, just make reading a cherished daily activity, and the moment will come at some point from 5-7.

I can read all day about things (news, science, etc) but my brain does not easily recall humans by name alone. I need to see the face. And so for me and I assume I'm not alone - story books will never be meaningful. It requires too much mental energy to track.

In the age of smartphones and tablets?

The disturbing thing is that you're talking about giving a kindergartner a smartphone/tablet... which is asking for trouble even if I've seen it done. This is exactly because their apps are designed to be so addictive.

When I was a kid I played with Lego. Every free moment was spent with Lego. My parents were continually warned by their friends and even our family doctor that I shouldn't spend so much time playing with Lego. It was 'addictive' and the time I spent playing with Lego was time I wasn't concentrating on homework, throwing ball, and other important things a child should be doing. The point is, every generation tends to have a play devil, the thing that will lead to the destruction of our society and hamper our children's long term success.

When I was growing up it was television that was the great satan.

> The disturbing thing is that you're talking about giving a kindergartner a smartphone/tablet [...] their apps are designed to be so addictive.

The e-reader app is not that addictive. Maybe you meant giving a kid unfettered access? That's a completely different issue and has parallels in many forms of entertainment. But you shouldn't call giving a kid a smartphone/tablet as disturbing on its face.

If you treat tech as something they are not supposed to use or something "bad", don't be surprise of they become convinced tech is not for them or something else later. Side effect will also he hate toward geeks and nerds, cause those break rules and play with tech.

It is balancing act.

Eh, it's not that big a deal. You have to monitor what they do (it helps to have a tablet that supports strong parental controls at this age), and set an expectation early on (and follow through) that tablet time is limited duration, and a privilege.

My son doesn't read a lot of books during the day, but we let him stay up after bedtime with a book (and a reading light), and the 'breaking the rules' part of that was compelling for him, even when he was questioning reading by himself when he didn't actually have those skills (he would look at pictures). Encouraging reading after bedtime means often he interrupts what I'm doing at night to ask for a new book and sometimes stays up too late and has trouble waking up in the morning, but I think it's worth it. Different kids need different things though.

If parents read books, than child would read also. It is like imprinting: child catches reading behaviour and imitates it. If parents do not read books but playing with smartphones and tablets, than child will not read books. It is simple at the first glance, but the problem is: if parents do not like reading, than it would be hard for them to show their child how they enjoy reading books.

And one more point. Maybe I'm wrong, but AFAIR child inclination to read is created from early childhood, so parents should show their reading enthusiasm to 1-2 years old child and older. Showing enthusiasm is not like "let me read to you", its like "of course I would play with you, but let me finish my book first". Reading to a child is also good, but it is not enough, because it shows behaviour "to read to a child", not "to read an interesting book for pleasure of reading" and not "to prefer book over video game".

It's not really that simple. My parents tried it this way with me and my bothers, and I didn't care about reading until years after they stopped. One of my brothers also started reading on his own several years after me. What we both needed was to find a topic and genre that touched on other interests we already had.

YMMV but my kids love their piles and piles of books even if they also want to be on their iPads pretty often. I give 'em a little time each day to watch a bit of TV, a little time on the tablet, as much time playing with friends and reading books as they want ... and they choose books a lot of the time.

I think if you just gave them the tablet and walked away, they might not look for anything else ... but that's true of any human of any age, it seems.

Do you mean to imply the books are all on the tablet or that the reading is replaced by apps?

Of course it’s each parents prerogative, but I would never trade the beaten up pile of Gerald and Piggy for an app in a million years.

The GP means to imply that smartphones and tablets are far more compelling to children than books.

Luckily as parents we get to control exactly how much they use those devices, at least through about 4th or 5th grade.

My son is a smartphone and PC addict but he still reads an insane amount. Way more than I did at his age but about the same as his mom. I think a lot of whether you like to read or not is genetic.

We let our child read from a Kindle Reader (the black and white kind) if we are out of library books.

I can attests to this. My parents would allow me to read as many books as I wanted before bed each night, and I would often pick out 4-5. I could read much earlier than most other kids, and my reading/writing skills are excellent today.

...but you can't tell because of my typo :P

In the fridge?

That one I haven’t seen.

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