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People sometimes ask me how my daughter learned to read so early. The honest answer is pretty unexciting: I read to her. Every single day, from the time she was a tiny baby, often more than once a day. Here’s what that looked like, stage by stage, and what I’d tell any new parent who wants to start.

It started before she was born

I talked to my daughter a lot, even while I was pregnant. After she was born, I just kept going. I narrated everything: what we were doing, what I was cooking, what we could see out the window. It felt a little silly at first, but babies soak up the sound of your voice long before they understand a single word.

4 months: reading anything out loud

When she was about four months old, I started reading to her properly. And by “properly” I mean I read whatever I was reading myself: articles, grown-up books, anything. At that age, it doesn’t really matter what you read. What matters is your voice, the rhythm of the words and the time together.

If you’re wondering whether that’s too early, it isn’t. The American Academy of Pediatrics actually recommends reading together with children starting from birth.

9 months: real baby books

Around nine months, we switched to proper baby books. Then came the pointing stage: simple picture books where you point at a photo and say, “This is an apple.” We had piles of those. She also loved The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Who Ate the Little Bug? by Hector Dexet, a clever little book with die-cut holes in every page that she could poke her fingers through while we hunted for the missing bug.

2 to 3 years: the Julia Donaldson era

Somewhere around two, my daughter discovered Julia Donaldson, and our house was never the same. The Snail and the Whale was her absolute favorite. We read it hundreds of times, and I could probably still recite it in my sleep. I’m writing a separate post about our favorite Donaldson books, because they deserve one.

“Just one book” (it was never just one)

Our rule was one book before bed. It never, ever ended with one book. And honestly, I didn’t mind. That bedtime reading became our favorite part of the day.

One small habit made a big difference: I ran my finger under the words as I read. After a while, she got curious and started putting her own finger on the text, following along.

4 years: “Mom, I can read this!”

When she was four, she started putting letters together into her first words. I was honestly shocked. By five, she was reading on her own.

Not everyone saw it the way I did. One teacher at her school suggested that reading so early must be a sign of something unusual. To me, there was nothing mysterious about it. My daughter had been read to every day for four years, often several times a day, with a finger moving under every line. Of course she picked it up. Some people just find it hard to believe that a parent would read that much while also running a home. But it’s absolutely doable, a few minutes at a time.

We didn’t stop when she could read herself

Even once she could read on her own, I kept reading to her. We worked our way through two whole Winnie-the-Pooh collections, Disney’s My Very First Winnie the Pooh and the bigger Out & About With Pooh library, one gentle hardcover after another. We also read books that were more emotional, like Gerda: Story of the Whale by Peter Kavecký and Adrián Macho. Fair warning: little Gerda loses her parents and brother, and the story hints at why. My daughter cried at that part, so I’d save it for slightly older kids (more on reading with a sensitive child in a future post).

Today, at nine, she reads whole series by herself: Dog Man and Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey, David Walliams (Fing is a current favorite), Tom Gates, Toto the Ninja Cat by Dermot O’Leary, Horrid Henry, Roald Dahl, and anything with a witch in it, from Winnie and Wilbur to The Worst Witch. Watching her disappear into a book on her own is one of my favorite things as a mom.

What I’d tell a new parent

• Start now. It’s never too early. Talk to your baby, even during pregnancy.
• Read anything at first. With a young baby, your own book or the news works just fine.
• Make it daily. Five minutes every day beats an hour once a week.
• Follow the words with your finger. It quietly shows that those squiggles on the page are words.
• Read the same book again (and again). Repetition is how little kids learn. Hundreds of readings of one book is a win, not a problem.
• Keep reading aloud after they can read. Longer books you share together build a love of stories that lasts.
• Don’t turn it into a lesson. We never “studied” letters. Reading was just something cozy we did together, and the rest followed.

Every child is different, and there’s no race to read early. But if you’re looking for one simple habit that pays off for years, this is it. Grab a book tonight. And if your child loves animals, here are some books for kids who love rodents to get you started.