Toddlers are busy exploring the world around them. When you make reading an important part of that exploration, you are giving them the great head start on learning to read.

From the time children are very young, their brains are growing and developing by leaps and bounds. By the time children are three, their brain will have grown to almost 90% of the size of an adult brain.

Read to your children every day. Experts agree. Children who are read to from a very early age are more successful at learning to read. And successful readers are successful students and successful people.

Have plenty of sturdy books around the house (some children love to chew everything). Take trips to the library—to check out books or stop in on a story hour together.

Wherever you go, try to take a book with you. As you wait for an appointment or the bus, you and your child can read together.

And even if you have read a book 6,000 times, do it 6,001 times. Children love repetition—and it might give them another chance to show you they recognize the word or tell you what will happen next in the story.