When my oldest son was 3 years old, he was diagnosed with a speech delay. So, my wife and I did what any concerned parent would do, we requested for him to have speech services from the public school system. Though the district acknowledged that our son needed support, they denied our request. Then, a district official said something that forever changed my life: “Don’t worry, your son can receive these services until he is 21 years old.”
As an educator, I knew the sobering truth: Our educational system often fails Black children. My wife and I were determined to not let it do the same to our son. That decision set me on a path that not only helped our son overcome his speech delay but also taught me a valuable lesson: There is power in reading aloud. And so, to celebrate National Reading Month, I want to urge parents everywhere to wield the power of reading so we can help all our children reach their potential.
According to literacy experts at the Warner School of Education and Human Development at the University of Rochester “reading aloud not only fosters a love for books but also plays a crucial role in cognitive, emotional and academic development.” I would learn this firsthand.
Faced with the realization that our son would not be getting services from our school district, my wife and I sought out interventions ourselves. We also made the decision that I would become a stay-at-home dad to help with our son’s development.
Through our insurance, we signed him up for speech therapy sessions at the local children’s hospital and took copious notes. After each of my son’s sessions, I would chat with the speech pathologist and ask for things I could do at home. At the end of our 16 sessions, the pathologist advised us that reading aloud to our son and having a conversation about what’s going on in the story would assist in his speech development.
We took that advice and ran with it. We turned our kitchen into a learning lab. We installed a white board on the wall to conduct our phonics lessons and placed classroom pocket charts underneath the white board to use during phonics exercises. We created phonics lessons, bought educational games, school supplies and, oh yes, we had a section for books.
I took both our sons on weekly trips to the library, where I encouraged them to choose books based on their dreams and interests. I crafted learning experiences based on the books we read. And I even created customized books featuring each of them as the protagonists, which not only brought immense joy but also made them want to read even more.
That summer, I read more than 600 books to our boys; books like Let’s Go on a Drive by Mo Willems, Trombone Shorty by Troy Andrews and Flossie & the Fox by Patricia C. McKissack. And, just as the speech pathologist suggested, I made sure to intertwine each read-aloud session with questions that helped them understand the beginning, middle and end of each story as well as social emotional questions to help them understand how the characters were feeling.
One of their favorites was a Happy Dreamer by Peter Reynolds. It is a fun and whimsical book about a little boy who learns about a boy who discovers the importance of being a resilient and holistic dreamer. I read this book to my sons at least once a week. One evening, my wife and I were sitting in the living room watching TV and we heard a big scream from the boys’ room. I jumped off the couch and ran to the room only to find our youngest son reading his favorite part of the book when the main character says “TRUMPETY, ZIG ZAG JAZZ!” I smiled and took a quick picture of him, then ushered him to sleep. For me, even years later, this moment still perfectly encapsulates how, when reading is made to be joyful, it can inspire children to do it on their own.
By the end of the summer, my older son had made great progress with his speech. The school-appointed speech therapist was amazed. And today, my son is a seventh grader who no longer needs speech therapy. This summer of reading also impacted my youngest son. By the age of 2 1/2, he was able to read.
In the fall of that year, my wife and I got a surprise of our own. One day, I was riding the bus with my younger son who was then 2 1/2. We were sitting next to a young lady with a Victoria Secret’s bag. He stared at the straps on her bag, then began to sound out each letter: “P-I-N-K.” He then sounded out the word and said, “Daddy, it spells pink!” The passengers on the bus were amazed, and so was I. This was a transformative moment because it illuminated the importance and impact of our work as parent-educators.
Years later, this learning experience with my sons served as the foundation for the founding of our family business, The Young Dreamers’ Bookstore. Many of the books I read and the learning experiences I designed, I took into the community and helped families, schools and community organizations support children in their reading journeys.
Some people might say that it is the educational system’s job to provide the necessary services for a child to succeed in school and that I should not have had to become a stay-at-home dad.
And that may be true. But the greater lesson is this: Creating learning experiences like reading aloud to our children has the power to transform their futures, to help them flourish and to pursue their dreams.
Nosakhere A. Griffin-EL, Ph.D., is a Pittsburgh-based educator, co-founder and CEO of The Young Dreamers’ Bookstore. He is also a Public Voices Fellow at The OpEd Project in partnership with the National Black Child Development Institute.