Principal Cassandra Smith works on reading with second grade students in her office at Lincoln Park Primary School. Photo credit: Michael Spooneybarger

We spend a lot of money on education.

The cost of K-12 public schooling in the U. S. comes to well over $500 billion per year. Hundreds of private philanthropies together spend almost $4 billion annually to support or transform primary and secondary education. Testing companies spend millions upon millions of dollars to ensure that Congress and the states understand the importance of buying their services.

The costs, unfortunately, outweigh the benefits.

Students still fail, schools underperform and teachers throw up their hands in resignation.

But there is hope, and it’s simple, easy and virtually free.

In an era of education reforms and high-stakes testing, research has shown over and over again that one simple parenting technique is among the most effective: reading to a child.

Children who are read aloud to get a head start in language and literacy skills and enter school better prepared.

That’s why Every Child A Reader in Escambia County (ECARE) and the United Way of Escambia County are teaming up to recruit ReadingPal volunteers to help pre-kindergarten pupils for the upcoming 2015-2016 school year.

For years, ECARE has been about the business of building a strong foundation of children entering the education system ready to learn.

Reading, of course, is at the heart of what they do.

They know that spending a few minutes reading Mother Goose rhymes brings better returns on the dollar than spending billions on education reforms and tests.

Reading aloud is, according to the groundbreaking 1985 report, “Becoming a Nation of Readers,” the single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading.

Despite the compelling evidence, some teachers and way too many parents fail to read aloud to children from a young age and miss the opportunity to develop avid and skilled readers.

Once children start school, difficulty with reading contributes to failure in school, which can increase the risk of absenteeism, dropping out, juvenile delinquency, substance abuse and teenage pregnancy — all of the things that contribute to the cycle of poverty and dependency.

The amassment of knowledge can only be gained by reading, and if you really want your children to be smart, they have to acquire an undying love for reading.

It has so many benefits and costs very little except a few minutes a day.

Before studies and statistics proved it so, poet Strickland Gillilan noted the importance of reading aloud to children when he wrote:

“You may have tangible wealth untold.

Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.

Richer than I you can never be.

I had a Mother who read to me.”

Of all the investments you can make in your children, reading aloud to them when they are young will help them the most as they grow old.