Dimon Kendrick-Holmes: Lessons learned in the library

A couple of days ago, I walked past the children's room in the Columbus Public Library and suffered a pang of nostalgia.

I used to read to my children in that room. They'd choose a stack of big, colorful books and we'd sit on a piece of soft furniture and plow through them. If a book were boring, they'd grab it from my hands and toss it aside and pick the next one. If a book was especially thrilling, at the end they might jump up and go look for another one by the same author or featuring the same artist.

And another thing happened: Without fail, all the other children in the room would join us. If it were Saturday, dozens of kids would be sitting on the floor around us. They'd be laughing and pointing and asking questions.

I don't go in that room much anymore. Today my girl is in Athens studying early childhood education and listening to weird music. My boys are installing brakes on old trucks, practicing karate kicks and learning to play banjo.

I can't help them much with any of those things. I know all my work as a parent is not done, but often it feels like it. Often I wish we were reading together again and they were pointing to the tiny mouse hiding somewhere different on each page of "Goodnight Moon," and we'd get to the blank page that said, "Goodnight nobody." And then the picture of a bowl that said, "Goodnight mush."

We always loved that part best.

Those random kids in the library liked that part, too. Sometimes I wonder what happened to them. They always seemed surprised that an adult -- and an adult male at that -- was actually willing to read and interact with them.

I learned two things from that experience: First, all children possess the aptitude to absorb words, pictures and stories. And second, all children want to be acknowledged and appreciated.

On that day this week, I was in the library to watch a documentary called "The Raising of America." It articulated many of the things I'd noticed years ago in the children's room.

Children learn new words by reading. If they know a lot of words when they enter kindergarten, they'll be strong readers when they get to third grade, and if they're strong readers in third grade, they'll graduate from high school, and if they graduate from high school, they'll...

You know the rest. And if they don't, they won't.

But here's something else. The documentary explored something called "serve and return." Yeah, it sounds like a tennis term. A child looks at his parent and does something to get her attention. The ball is in Mom's court. Then Mom returns it by smiling or nodding or saying a kind word.

That simple interaction strengthens the connections in a child's brain. When a parent doesn't respond, it confuses the child and adds stress.

Most people want their children to have great vocabularies and powerful brains, but they're often too busy with work and worry to do anything about it, and often they don't know what to do. Having a weak education and a low income and being exposed to violence only increases the stress for parents.

That's why I was mobbed by kids at the library. That's why I read to at-risk, pre-kindergarten children through a program with the Literacy Alliance.

There are a lot of ways to help. You can read to kids, starting with your own kids, or you can encourage parents to read to their kids or to turn off the TV and listen to them.

Serve and return.

It helps one person, and it helps our entire community in the long run.

Dimon Kendrick-Holmes, executive editor, dkholmes@ledger-enquirer.com.

This story was originally published September 4, 2015 at 11:44 PM with the headline "Dimon Kendrick-Holmes: Lessons learned in the library ."