I was signing books at a local establishment recently when a young child about the age of three came up to my table and smiled. I smiled back. Being three is great - the world is wonderful and exciting and everything is about sights and sounds and being noticed by others. Because she had toddled over to the table, her father came by and politely asked what I was selling. I explained that I was an author and I was signing books for my neighbors. His daughter started to grab for a book when he swiftly picked it up, looked at it for a brief moment and said, "What a nice book...but Maria doesn't know how to read."

My heart lurched and it probably sunk down to my ankles because for me it wasn't about selling books that day, it wasn't about writing or about explaining my craft. For me, that moment was about that child and about how she was deprived of a book, any book, because she simply could not read.

Reading does not happen in a vacuum. It is a process that develops over time. Children who learn to love reading, who experience the joy of sitting down, enveloped in a tale that grabs their imagination and tugs at their soul, love reading because they have been practicing the "act" even before they could actually read the written words.

Reading should start in the womb and continue every day for the rest of a child/adult's life. If you read to your child and allow them to pick up books, caress them, place their sticky fingers on the pages and bend the corners of the one they love the most, you will create a reader!

Just because a child can't read doesn't mean you don't expose them to books. Buy books, visit the library, take books to restaurants, give your child a book instead of a Game Boy or video. Most importantly, start a family library. Buy one bookshelf and keep it centrally located so that your child knows how important reading is to the family. All of these things will help your child become a better reader when they begin to hit the books.

Start early. When your child is in the womb, read. When your child is born, read. When your child starts to crawl, read. You would never think to not speak to your child because she can't talk. Why would you think to not read to your child simply because she can't read?