The link between reading habits before age 3 and the pleasure of reading at school

The first three years of life, often described by child development researchers as a sensitive period, play a disproportionate role in building many of the skills and dispositions that will lastingly influence a child's future trajectory, well beyond this initial period.

The relationship with books is no exception to this rule: the very first experiences with a book, however simple they may be, leave a lasting emotional imprint that will continue to influence, years later, the child's attitude toward reading, including within the more formal framework of school learning.

A child who has developed a positive and regular reading habit from their earliest years, even through an object as simple as a felt book, generally approaches the formal learning of reading with stronger intrinsic motivation, a factor widely recognized as decisive in the success of this learning.

This early intrinsic motivation is clearly distinguished from a purely extrinsic motivation, built later through rewards or academic pressures, which is generally less effective and less sustainable over time than the authentic engagement built from early childhood.

This continuity between early experiences and the later relationship with school reading does not, however, mean that a child without this early exposure would be permanently disadvantaged, but it underscores the real value of building these foundations during the first years of life whenever possible.

Moreover, educational psychology research consistently confirms this link between positive early exposure to books and subsequent pleasure in reading, a factor that in turn influences many other academic subjects, as reading is an essential cross-curricular skill.

It is this continuity, often invisible but very real, between the modest ritual of the felt book during the first months of life and the pleasure of reading that may potentially manifest years later at school, which highlights the long-term importance of paying particular attention to these very first moments of a child's life.