By James Bow

My eldest daughter is now five-and-a-half. As a father, I’ve seen many wonderful things since she and her sister were born, but these past few months have topped all the rest: my eldest daughter is starting to read.

Where once we would read to her and she would look at the pictures, now she’s reading along. Sometimes she reads to herself. She graduated from simple picture books very quickly and is now enjoying the latest Elephant and Piggie by Mo Willems. She adores Robert Munsch, and the other day got through half of Dr. Suess’s Fox in Sox without any help. She’s even started reading the signs on the fronts of businesses as we pass by them.

It’s fascinating watching a new world open up for her. The only drawback is, we can no longer spell out items that we want to communicate to other people around her without her knowing, like c-o-o-k-i-e. She now knows what that spells.

All this was taught. My wife and all the grandparents have helped my daughter by encouraging her to read and reading along with her, but I don’t know the first thing about actually teaching my daughter to read. And yet, I believe she’s ahead of where I was when I was her age. I only remember really starting to read back in Grade 1. But then, my daughter has had advantages that I haven’t. By Grade 1, I had only two years of schooling behind me. My daughter now has three.

Three years ago this past September, we paid for my daughter to attend the Early Childhood Education Centre at the University of Waterloo. This centre operates a preschool as part of its mandate to explore how children develop and learn in their early years. Taught by professionals with years of experience in classes that hold no more than eight students each, my daughter thrived so much there that we decided to enroll her in ECEC’s junior kindergarten program.

The ECEC preschool is outside of the public education system, though they teach the Ontario curriculum. We paid for this education out of our pockets, but I think we were well served by our investment. My daughter made fast friends, and was well prepared for when she entered the public school system in time for senior kindergarten.

Here too, my daughter thrived, thanks to the provincial government’s decision to fund full-day kindergarten at our local school. One reason we’d kept my daughter out of the public system’s junior kindergarten was that, at the time, they had adopted a full-day, every-other-day schedule. I saw our neighbours’ children, who were a year older than her, struggle with this arrangement. A full day of school is a lot for a young child to take, and alternating between one day on and one day off is confusing and stressful for both them and the parent.

But full-day, every-day kindergarten came with great support for our child, not only in the form of an excellent teacher, but multiple teaching assistants. It was a solid investment in my daughter’s time and education.

Thanks to our investment, and the provincial government’s investment, I believe that my daughter is comfortable in school and eager to learn. I believe this benefits her not only today, but years down the road. For the past three years, our daughter has been taught to love learning. At this point, the opportunities ahead of her seem endless. She can channel her energies into whatever field she wants, and I think she has the determination to succeed. I cannot help but feel that, years down the line, society in general will have benefitted greatly from this contribution.

I’d like to thank the teachers, government officials and parents who have made this investment possible.

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James Bow is a writer and a father of two in Kitchener, Ontario.
You can read more about him at http://bowjamesbow.ca.