We get it! You are busy and finding the time to fit everything into your daily schedule is difficult, to say the least. But you keep hearing that 15 minutes of reading a day is necessary to prepare your child for school. Why is this the magic amount of time?

With 15 minutes of reading per day, your child clocks 5,475 minutes each year, or 91 and a quarter hours! In this time, they are being exposed to over 1,000,000 words! Compare that to peers who are read to infrequently, if at all: for 1 minute each day, they’re reading for just 365 minutes, or 6 hours, each year. These children are only being exposed to 8,000 words per year! Talk about a reading readiness gap.

Research shows that reading with your child is the number one thing you can do to help prepare him or her for success in future reading and learning. Children who are read to consistently from an early age pass their peers in language development, brain development, and literacy skill building, and are more likely to have a love for reading.

If you are still struggling with finding the time to sit with your child and spend 15 minutes reading together, register with Osceola Reads! This initiative offers a free mobile reading app to all Osceola County children. Just register, download the Footsteps2Brilliance app, and watch your child start immediately learning literacy skills.

Don’t delay registering with Osceola Reads, because the Ultimate Reading Race is happening NOW! Every child not yet in Kindergarten who registers between now and November 15 will be entered to win an Amazon Kindle Fire tablet. Giveaways begin this month!