Alba's reading poster

My niece is setting a good example with her baby, Alba. Alba is three months old and already sitting down to a good read. Bravo, Silvia. As an adult, Alba will be able to look back to the moment captured in this photo as the launch pad of so many different possible careers: critic, writer, publisher, illustrator, professor, ... model.

As an educator of children in primary school, it is so obvious to me which children have been read to and taught to express themselves in language, and which haven't. The latter is too often the case with hispanic immigrant children whose parents don't read or talk with their children in a way that is developmentally beneficial, whether because of economic pressure, limited education and/or literacy, or the fear that teaching their babies all they can in their language will somehow handicap them in this new land where English reigns supreme. The opposite is the truth. The more highly developed language is in a child, the easier it will be to graft a new language onto that structure.