In honor of Christianne’s maternity leave we asked some of our favorite people to share stories from "the fourth trimester," the period between birth and 12 weeks postpartum during which your baby (or the baby you care for) is adjusting to the world and you're adjusting to your baby. Today Ryan Billingsley is here to talk about the importance of reading and books. Ryan is the writer and lead father at DadSuggests.com, where he writes fatherly thoughts on the kids books and games that his family loves.

If you’ve recently welcomed a new baby into your home, especially if it’s your first, there’s probably a good chance that you’ve also been consuming a lot of parenting advice too. Parents instinctively want to care for their kids and do their best to set them up for a rewarding life. But a recipe of exactly what that entails is obviously the holy grail we’re all searching for.

Of course there are the obvious basic needs - food and shelter. And the secondary psychological needs that have a deep impact on mental well-being - feeling safe and secure and loved. But what comes after that? What’s the next secret ingredient that gives your kids the best chance for a happy and fulfilling life? For your consideration - I’d like to suggest that the answer is books.

Parent to parent, I highly recommend becoming intimately familiar with your local public library, or beginning to build your own children’s library. And, if at all feasibly possible, I strongly encourage you to set aside time each day for a family read aloud. The benefits of being read to every day, and the bonding and imagination that comes along with it, is not something to be underestimated by a long shot.

To make sense of the topic, I like to think that the benefits of reading to children can be broken down into two main topics - academic growth and personal growth. And, for what it’s worth, out of the two I value the personal growth a significant deal more.

Academic growth is the obvious one. Somewhere around 2nd or 3rd grade, most kids stop learning how to read and start reading to learn - at least that’s how schools are set up. If they are behind on their reading level by that time, it’s very hard to ever catch up academically, because they continue to fall further and further behind in a big negative snowball effect. At that point, the tests in every subject are basically a reading test.

That’s really more of an indictment against the structure of the education system if anything, but it’s still undeniable that reading ability is the number one predictor of academic success the way things are currently structured. If you want to avoid such a fate, the best you can do is read to your kids.

Now, just like basically every other topic in the world of parenting, it’s yet another case of the eternal question - nature or nurture? And, as always, the answer is very likely a mix of the two. But it simply can’t be denied that exposure to books builds vocabulary, fluency, and a better feel for prosody. And when push comes to shove, and they start trying to transform words on paper into meaning - knowing more words and being familiar with patterns and rhythms of language is an astronomical help.

And reading ability also essentially unlocks the ability to learn independently - the type of lifelong learning I actually place a lot more value in. If a child is able to read, and they are motivated to learn something, the possibilities are endless in this day and age. And you simply can’t discount the lasting positive influence this can have if they have this positive relationship with books and learning from an early age, because motivation and engagement are almost always the most important factors in education. Any teacher will tell you that complete student buy-in is the holy grail, and you just can’t teach desire.

So the academic side of reading is certainly worthy of note, and a great gift to give to kids. It’s also probably the very best gift you can give if traditional academic and professional success is on your mind. But it’s certainly debatable how important traditional academic success is in the big scheme of things, and, like I mentioned, the academic side of reading pales in comparison to the value of the personal growth side.

I’ve long said that as a parent, it’s now my lifelong mission and extreme honor to provide as much wonder as possible to our kids. It’s my noble duty to provide every opportunity to cultivate imagination and creativity, and set our kids on a path that gives them the very best chance to always discover happiness and meaning in life. And, while there are many ways to do this, I don’t know of a single one better than the power of storytelling.

We have read to our 8-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter every single day of their lives. My wife reads so many books to our kids at night that it’s not unusual for them all - her and the kids - to fall asleep while reading. Read aloud time is a powerful and rewarding moment of family bonding, and I certainly attribute our kids’ love of stories to that bonding time, and the fact that books have always been such a significant and positive part of their lives.

And I also directly attribute their impressive independent reading ability to family read aloud time as well. Currently our son is independently reading The Order of the Phoenix and our daughter is reading her early readers to us. Like I said, it’s impossible to discount the importance of vocabulary, and the rhythm of the sentence patterns you soak up through osmosis sitting in your parent’s lap.

The stories we discover together open up windows to new worlds. We meet new people and explore new lands. We build upon our empathy and understanding together every day. Through the exposure to the imagination of the artist, the very boundaries of what is possible in life are constantly expanding.

I like to think that the secret to happiness is finding meaning and seeking out beauty in everything that the world has to offer. Finding your personal interest in life is paramount, something that has meaning for you. A big key to this for me has always been art, and the more languages you learn or art you consume, the more potential you have to enjoy life and discover beauty and meaning or even just something that interests you. As a dad that’s the gift I want to give my kids - the gift of imagination and wonder and curiosity. And there’s simply no better starting place than reading together.

- Ryan of Dad Suggests

@dadsuggests