When my first son was about three and a half years old, I decided I wanted to teach him to read myself. As a first grade teacher at the time, I may have just wanted to do it myself and not let anyone else do it. I can honestly tell you that I’m not sure why I felt compelled to do so, but in the end, I taught her and have taught my other two children to read as well.

In this article I tell you, based on my experiences, why I believe that parents themselves can and should take the initiative to teach their children to read. I no longer have any doubt why and I can share six reasons with you.

The first reason I’ll give you is that making sure your child reads well in school leads to early success in school. I learned in teacher’s school that success leads to more success. Children love to feel successful and will work hard to feel more successful. This is the kind of cycle I wanted my children and students to experience. And I saw a lot of that using the phonograms. First graders love recess. There is no doubt about it. But when we worked on the phonograms, we often didn’t take the morning break and I rarely heard any complaints about it. Other teachers asked me where we were and could hardly believe it when I told them that we were working.

The second reason is that children will be more confident learners. Imagine that your child goes to school and already knows how to read. Your son will enter that school knowing that learning is not that difficult and that he can do it. Contrast with the example of a student who does not yet know how to read and the difficulties he faces. A big part of life is about believing in yourself, and teaching your child to read is a good way for him to start believing early. You should know that once they have it, the chances of losing it are small.

Next, your child will learn a lot through the world of reading. You can also get them started early and let the learning begin. I helped my kids choose books to read early on, and often made nonfiction an option. Pretty amazing what their little brains can take in just because they can read about it. Children can also learn a lot from watching TV, but there is a lot of research showing that people who read are smarter than people who don’t read. Need I say more?

I haven’t talked about phonograms yet. But teaching your child to read with 70 phonograms makes him understand that words are made up of parts. Research shows that children who understand that words are made up of parts are better readers. It’s easy to see why your child would understand that words are made up of parts. You will teach them all the parts using the phonograms. There is a Stanford study that links learning sounds activates the left hemisphere, which is the hemisphere used by expert readers. All of these reasons are important. I think if I had to rate them, I’d go with this one as number one.

Another reason to teach your child to read is that you will have no doubts about how your child learns to read. I’m not saying that there aren’t many successful teachers in the world who teach children to read and that there aren’t many different ways to teach children to read. In fact, I strongly believe that if parents are extremely involved and supportive, almost any method will work. What I am saying is that you have the opportunity to eliminate any doubt about the process.

And finally, the last reason, why I am also leaning as number one. This reason relates to the joy that you get to experience during the process of teaching your child to read. You will spend many hours with your child during the process, some of them very challenging and some of them very frustrating. But in the end, your child will read well, and you will have been instrumental in making this happen. When children make the transition from saying all the words to those first words that become their own, it’s a wonderful time. And then the joy continues as you watch them learn more and more and more words and begin to read. You’ll be amazed at what your child can do once she’s learned all the phonograms and starts reading regularly. And it was because you made the decision to make it happen.

There you have it, six excellent reasons for parents themselves to teach their children to read. The success, the confidence, the knowledge, the words are made of parts, the security of the method and, finally, the joy that will be experienced. I may not have known why I felt compelled to teach my children to read, but I was lucky enough to experience all six reasons and now feel compelled to help other parents have the same experience.