Blog Posts

Give Curiosity Somewhere to Go

Dr. Susan B. Neuman is a renowned literacy researcher and educator whose work on “book deserts” helped show how unequal access to books shapes children’s reading lives. She recently hosted RIF’s webinar Rally to Read 100: Read Together, Inspire Together, which kicked off Year 6 of Rally to Read 100 and its free author read-alouds for classrooms and families. In this guest post, Dr. Neuman explains why children’s curiosity is one of the strongest starting points for reading, and why putting books within reach is only the beginning. Readers will learn simple, research-informed ways to build knowledge and vocabulary, connect one book to the next, and spark the kind of conversations that help children become lifelong readers. 

Children are born knowledge seekers. 

Anyone who has spent time with a young child knows this. Why does the moon follow us? Where do worms go when it rains? What happened to dinosaurs? How does that work? Their questions can be relentless. Their curiosity certainly is. 

Why do children lose interest in reading as they grow? 

And yet, something troubling happens as children grow older. Their curiosity about the world remains remarkably strong, while their interest in reading for pleasure declines. That should concern all of us who care about children and literacy. Because reading is not simply something children need to learn to do well. It is one of the most powerful ways they have to satisfy that extraordinary hunger to know. 

Books give curiosity somewhere to go. 

For much of my career, I’ve studied the environments in which children learn to read. And one lesson has stayed with me: opportunity matters. Children can’t choose books they cannot find. They can’t become avid readers when books are scarce, inaccessible, or treated as something that belongs only to school. 

What are book deserts? 

Years ago, my colleagues and I documented what we came to call “book deserts”—communities where children had astonishingly little access to books. In some neighborhoods, books for young children were plentiful. In others, we could walk block after block and find almost none. The children were no less curious. Their opportunities were simply very different. 

That distinction matters enormously to me. Too often, we talk about differences in children’s achievement as though they originate within children. But children do not arrive in our classrooms with equal access to books, words, conversations, and experiences. When some children have books in every room and others have few books within reach, we should not be surprised when those differences accumulate. 

How can we create environments that build readers? 

The good news is that environments can change. 

We can put wonderful books where children can see them, reach them, browse them, and choose them. We can create classrooms that quietly announce: Books belong here. You belong here. You are a reader. We can make sure children encounter books in which they recognize their families and communities—and books that take them someplace entirely new. 

But access, important as it is, is only the beginning. 

What makes a read-aloud experience powerful? 

A book within reach creates an opportunity. What we do with that book creates the experience. 

Some of the most powerful reading experiences I’ve observed are remarkably simple. An adult and children linger over an idea. They read another book that connects to it. They learn a few wonderful new words—not 20 words hurriedly introduced and forgotten, but a few words they hear, say, use, and encounter again. Most important, they talk. They wonder. They make connections. They begin to know something they did not know before. 

That is why I believe we need to think differently about what it means to inspire children to read. Inspiration is not a special activity we add after the “real” reading instruction is finished. It grows from the reading experience itself. 

Stay with an idea. Connect books. Teach a few words deeply. Talk about what you are learning. 

These are small moves, but they do something quite profound. They allow knowledge to build. A child who learns about caterpillars today has more to bring to a book about butterflies tomorrow. A child who learns about storms begins noticing clouds. One book creates a reason to open the next. 

Where does a love of reading begin? 

And that may be where the love of reading really begins. 

We sometimes speak as though our job is to somehow give children a love of reading. I am not sure that’s quite right. Children already bring us something enormously powerful: curiosity. 

Our job is to protect it, feed it, and surround it with opportunity. 

Then we need to place a book in their hands—and give that curiosity somewhere to go. 

Ready to give curiosity somewhere to go? Rally to Read brings free author read-alouds to classrooms and families, so every child can hear a great story, ask big questions, and discover the next book they can’t wait to open. 

Biography: 
Dr. Susan B. Neuman is a Professor of Teaching and Learning at New York University specializing in childhood education and early literacy development. Previously, she has been a Professor at the University of Michigan and has served as the U.S. Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education. In her role as Assistant Secretary, she established the Early Reading First program, the Early Childhood Educator Professional Development Program and was responsible for all activities in Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Act. She has served on the IRA Board of Directors (2001-2003), and other numerous boards of non-profit organizations, and served as Co-editor of Reading Research Quarterly (2011-2018), ILA flagship research journal. Her research and teaching interests include early childhood policy, curriculum, and early reading instruction, prek-grade 3 for children who live in poverty. Neuman has received two life-time achievement awards for research in literacy development, and is a member of the Reading Hall of Fame, and a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association. She has written over 100 articles, and authored and edited 12 books. Her newest edited by Cabell, Neuman & Patton-Terry is the “Handbook of the Science of Early Literacy” (2023) and Neuman and Kuhn, “Handbook of the Science of Literacy: Grades 3-8 published by Guilford Press.