How Mickey Helped Teach My Child to Read

As a slightly neurotic first time mom, I knew from all of the parenting books and magazines that reading aloud was one of the best ways to get a child off to a good start with language. And it was said that it was never too early to start.

So starting at the time he was three or four months of age, I read books to my son. By nine months old, his favorite story was the Mouse Works Disney Classic, Dumbo. Not the abridged version either; this was the 96 page full story with the large colorful pages. He loved the Dumbo movie but I didn't want him to watch too many videos.

Against the advice of some of the experts, I did allow my young son to watch educational television and videos. He had three favorite video tapes: Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too, Sesame Street Letters and Sesame Street Numbers. After awhile these got old and a relative passed on Heigh-Ho, an old Disney Sing a Long Song Tape. Now, this was something that I could watch over and over too. The music was fun and best of all; the words came up on the screen to “sing-a-long” with. We soon acquired the entire collection of tapes as they were a great educational tool, in my book anyway.

By the age of two, my son was reading words. And by kindergarten, he was reading chapter books. It wasn’t just a fluke either as my younger son was also an early reader.

It is important to note that I didn’t stop reading aloud to my children. We bought a few sets of Disney books that were offered one per week at our local grocery store. Ever book was read cover to cover along with that complete library of Mouse Works Classics. The kids loved the stories as much as I did. And I think the magic of the mouse helped turned my kids into early readers.

Copyright 2011 Magical Mouse Tales