Educators and researchers know that helping the youngest children learn to read is important, because early reading difficulties can end up causing problems for those children throughout their school years and into adult life, affecting job opportunities, family welfare, personal development, and future generations. While a lot of marketing in the toy industry goes towards promoting video games, some companies are offering books as toys while organizations everywhere are using reading-related competitions to raise money to provide free books for children. Libraries are important resources, and studies have also shown that when there are books in a child’s home, they’ll be more likely to want to learn to read, especially if their parents read to them first.

New technology is making it easier to keep kids interested and eager to read, because more and more books are being put on line or downloaded into portable devices. One of the oldest publishers of children’s books in the United States, Scholastic Publishing, has made it a priority to keep up with the digital market. Today, as well as continuing to publish print books for children of all ages, they’re making good literature available in e-book format so that kids can use their favorite technology to keep reading. Scholastic has also developed a digital reading instruction program called iRead that targets students in their first three years of school, a crucial learning period for reading skills.

Kids are attracted to high-tech toys, and it only makes sense to use that attraction to encourage them to develop their reading skills. Online books, especially reading apps that have interactive elements and games, will quickly help children improve their reading and literacy abilities so that they can take advantage of all the opportunities they find in the years to come.