New in YOMU: Parents can now track their reading too
At YOMU, we believe one of the best ways to help kids read more is to make reading part of everyday family life.
Until now, YOMU has focused on helping children track their reading progress, build momentum, and earn rewards set by their parents.
But we kept coming back to a simple truth: Kids notice what we do. They notice when we pick up our phones, when we scroll, and when we read.
That’s why we built a new feature that lets parents track their own reading in YOMU, too.
Not because parents need another thing to manage, but because kids are influenced by the habits they see around them.
The American Academy of Pediatrics puts it plainly: children learn by watching the people around them, especially their parents. When parents model a behavior, they help teach that behavior.
That matters for reading.
Research from the National Literacy Trust found that children’s most common reading role models are their parents, with mums and dads ranking ahead of siblings, teachers, and celebrities. Scholastic’s Kids & Family Reading Report similarly found that children who are frequent readers are much more likely to say that many people in their lives enjoy reading, and that parents are children’s primary reading role models.
In other words, a love of reading does not just grow from reminders and rewards. It grows from a culture of reading in the home.
A child who sees reading as something adults only assign may resist it. A child who sees reading as something adults actually enjoy may begin to understand it differently. Reading becomes less like homework and more like a normal and enjoyable part of life.
That is the idea behind parent reading in YOMU.