Firstly, literacy is a very large idea.  Literacy is largely experience. We become literate to the world around us, the people, the relationships, the predicaments and solutions.

There’s more to why reading matters than literacy on all its significant levels.  Case in point: the experience of sharing a book with someone.  Discussing a book together is an amazing experience, how it made you feel, how you grew, your cause for self-reflection, your relationship to the characters of the book.  But reading ALOUD together deepens the experience beyond measure.

Every book that’s I’ve read aloud to my kids over this last thirty years, story books or novels, have become part of our collective experience and adventure as a family.

The language has infiltrated our lives:

Pass the damn ham.

Look kids, it’s a snort.

The places have influenced our lives:

You can always come back to the Shire.

Let’s all pretend this is Whoville.

It’s just like the Wardrobe.

And, above all, the characters have influenced our lives: 

Charlotte.

Scrooge.

Scout.

Sam.

Piglet.

Atticus.

Mr. Darcy.

Jo.

Peter Pan.

Evangeline.

Anne. With an e.

We wanted to meet them, scold them, marry them, be them.

They are our friends.  And when we read together, they are our family friends. Companions for the journey that we learn from and find joy with.

 Our lives become richer having walked (crawled or toddled) with such as these.