The spring sports season is getting the best of me. Between travel soccer, recreational softball and kindergarten t-ball, our evenings are busy with practices and our weekends with games.

I realized the other day, that our library bag has sat empty for a few weeks for the first time since the girls were born. We haven’t sat on the couch and worked through stacks of new books. We haven’t interrupted play time to hear that one, “just one more time.” We haven’t talked about our favorite new character over breakfast.

I already knew that this was a problem. Then I read a compelling post that made me realize I have to stop knowing this is a problem and do something about it.

Thanks to Jen Robinson, Carol Rasco and Terry Doherty‘s amazingly wonderful Children’s Literacy and Reading News Round-Up, I was directed to this post.

The post highlights a study conducted by  the Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The study states that

children whose parents regularly read aloud with them in the first year of primary school performed substantially better in reading at age 15 than children whose parents rarely, if ever, read to them. The results underscore the need for effective family engagement strategies as part of any plan to improve children’s language and literacy development.

And of additional interest is the fact that

even when comparing students of similar socio-economic backgrounds, those students whose parents regularly read books to them when they were in the first year of primary school score 14 points higher, on average, than students whose parents did not…

Sure sounds like I need to take my own medicine and start prioritizing reading again…