Nearly 1 billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their name. What would you miss most if you could not read or write? Imagine your world without words.

You wouldn’t be reading this blog for a start…

Today is World Read Aloud Day which is all about raising awareness of literacy levels worldwide. According to the Litworld website nearly 171 million children across the globe could be lifted out of poverty if they left school with basic reading and writing skills.

The geekdaddy and I believe in a consistent bedtime routine, and part of that is reading stories to our children. The geekdaughter gets three stories of her choice before bed (although we reserve the right to tell her to make a different selection if she chooses three long ones!), and the geekson gets one (which the geekdaughter gets to listen to as well).

In addition, one of the things I like to do with the geekdaughter when it’s just the two of us is to read stories to her. Today we snuggled up together on the sofa after I’d put the geekson to bed for his afternoon nap, and we read another couple of stories.

I am really proud that in our house full of technology and gadgets we still make time for reading aloud. I have always enjoyed being read aloud to (in fact the only books I “read” these days are audiobooks), and I really want my kids to grow up with a love of reading as well.

Here’s the books we read aloud on World Read Aloud Day: The Little Mermaid, Moomin and the Birthday Button, The Tiger Who Came to Tea, Noddy and the Pirates, On the Way Home and Winnie the Pooh Weather: A Lift the Flap Book.

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. I haven’t even put affiliate links in to Amazon on the book titles. This is just something I wanted to write about because I think it is really important.