When I was a little girl my mom and dad read to me all the time. They also read books for pleasure themselves, as well as magazines and newspapers and the backs of cereal boxes. Once I could read, I read books. I had lots of books, we went to the library all the time, and I was praised for reading. Bedtime always involved a story - either from a book or from my mom and dad’s memory. My dad, in particular, was great at bedtime stories and I learned all the Greek myths before I was 6 years old from his night-time re-tells.

I was little in the 70s and I don’t remember ever having cable, if it even existed, and we got 3 channels in most of the places we lived if we were lucky. So - lots of books, no TV, and obviously, no video games or computers (because I’m too old for that), and people who modeled that reading was an activity better than pretty much anything else you could do.

That’s how to raise a reader! I’m a professional in the book industry (writer, publisher, and librarian) but I’m also a mom who is raising 2 readers of her own. Both my boys have access to stuff I didn’t have - computers, video games, and way more channels on TV than a person could ever need - but we limit their access to screens and we never limit their access to words. If given the choice, guess which thing they spend more time doing?

You’re right: reading.