Celebrate Grandparents Day: Read with your Grandchildren

By Kristen J. Amundson“Left foot, left foot,Right foot, right.Feet in the morningFeet at night.”—”The Foot Book,” Dr. SeussIt has been 40 years since I last read Dr. Seuss’s “The Foot Book” aloud, but I can still recite it, nearly word for word. That’s because I read it an estimated 83,492 times during my daughter’s earliest years. When kids fall in love with a particular book, they want to hear it again and again. For the grandparent reading this favorite book, it’s good to know that research into how children learn language supports these seemingly unending repetitions.This year, National Grandparents Day will be celebrated on September 8. It’s a great day to spend time reading with your grandchildren. You will be sharing a favorite book, but you’ll also be helping your grandchild learn important reading skills. Of course, you may be sharing that book repeatedly.& Researchers& tell us that children learn words through repeated readings of texts. (Grandparents could tell us that as well.) As your grandkids hear words again and again, their knowledge of the word will move from& never hearing it, to& sounds familiar& to& it has something to do with, to& well known. One& study& even showed that...