The Reading Start Perspective

The First Goodbye: What I Learned Watching Hundreds of Children Start School

Last September changed the way I think about school transitions. More accurately, it cemented something I had first discovered as a parent.

I was a teacher for six years before I became a parent. I had seen plenty of children cry on the first day of school, and I thought I understood it. It wasn't until I had to drop off my own children that I realized just how hard saying goodbye can be from the other side of the classroom door. Like many parents, I thought that staying a little longer was helping.

Over time, I learned that the quickest goodbye is often the gentler goodbye.

As parents, our instinct is to comfort our children when they are upset. We hug them a little longer, reassure them one more time, and sometimes linger because leaving while they are crying feels impossible.

But when children know what to expect, they begin building trust. A calm hug, a confident "I love you. I'll see you after school," and a consistent routine can communicate safety far more effectively than a long goodbye filled with uncertainty. Lingering, although well intentioned, can unintentionally signal that there is something to worry about.

That doesn't mean children won't cry. Tears are a normal response to a new experience. Our goal isn't to eliminate those emotions. Our goal is to help children learn that they can feel nervous, move through those feelings, and discover that school is a safe place where caring adults will support them.

One of the things I observed most often was that children usually settled within minutes after their caregiver left. They joined their classmates, began playing, listened to a story, or became engaged in classroom routines. Meanwhile, many parents drove away wondering if their child had cried all morning. More often than not, they hadn't. If you're lucky enough to get a quick update from your child's teacher or school, that little glimpse of a happily playing child can be incredibly reassuring.

As both an educator and a parent, this experience reminded me that one of the greatest gifts we can give our children is confidence in their ability to do hard things. A confident goodbye isn't about rushing children through their emotions. It's about showing them that we believe they are capable and that we trust the adults we are leaving them with.

Here in New York City, we are on the precipice of a new school year. If your child is preparing for a first day, you don't have to wait until that morning to begin preparing for the goodbye.

Take a drive past the school. Talk about what the morning might look like. Tell your child who will bring them to school, what will happen when you arrive, and when they can expect to see you again. Decide what your goodbye routine will be and talk about it beforehand. Predictability can make something unfamiliar begin to feel familiar.

Books can help with that preparation, too, but I'm always hesitant to hand parents a definitive list for something as personal as separation. Books are not one-size-fits-all, and different stories resonate with different children and families. In my own house, All Day Long and Llama Llama Misses Mama were winners with both of my children. As a teacher, I relied on The Kissing Hand for years, although, ironically, I lent my copy out before I ever got the chance to read it to my children.

And sometimes a difficult transition requires more than a book or a goodbye routine. When I'm looking for guidance specifically around children's emotions, separation, and behavior, I turn to experts in those areas.

Resources I Trust

Dr. Becky Kennedy, Good Inside
For guidance around separation anxiety, children's emotions, and navigating difficult parenting moments.

Jess VanderWier, Nurtured First
For guidance around separation, goodbyes, emotional development, and children's behavior.

Most importantly, remember that a tearful goodbye does not necessarily mean a bad day is ahead. Your child can miss you and enjoy school. They can feel nervous and still walk through the door.

Sometimes our job as parents is simply to give them a hug, tell them we love them, and show them through our own confidence that we believe they can do the next hard thing.

About The Reading Start Perspective

The Reading Start Perspective shares lessons I've learned through my experiences as a classroom teacher, parent, literacy researcher, and elementary school dean. These reflections aren't meant to replace individualized guidance for every child or family. Instead, they bring together research, professional experience, and the everyday moments I've witnessed while supporting children and families through the early years.

Literacy Is Everywhere: Why Summer May Be the Best Time to Build a Reader

Every summer, parents hear the same message: prevent the "summer slide." We stock up on workbooks, reading logs, flashcards, and educational games because we want our children to continue learning while school is out. As a former classroom teacher, I understand those concerns, and I still believe reading together and maintaining academic routines are important. Many parents ask me about flashcards, sight words, and which workbooks to buy. However, over the years, both as an educator and through my doctoral research, I've come to think about summer a little differently.

One of the greatest gifts summer gives children isn't another worksheet. It's experiences.

Those experiences matter because they build two essential ingredients for reading success: vocabulary and background knowledge.

Vocabulary is the collection of words children understand and use to communicate. Background knowledge is everything children know about the world through their own experiences. Together, these two skills help children make sense of what they read. Reading comprehension is not simply about decoding the words on a page. It's about understanding them. The more children know about the world and the more language they have to describe it, the easier it becomes to connect with books, ask questions, make predictions, and understand increasingly complex texts.

The journey toward literacy doesn't begin on the first day of kindergarten. It begins in infancy. Long before children can speak or read independently, they are building the language, vocabulary, and experiences that will eventually help them make sense of books. A baby listening to a caregiver describe a neighborhood walk, a toddler pointing to construction vehicles, and a school age child asking questions at a baseball game are all on the same developmental journey. The experiences become more complex as children grow, but the foundation is built through responsive conversations and shared experiences from the very beginning.

Research consistently shows that responsive conversations and shared experiences support children's language development, vocabulary growth, and later reading comprehension. Although some children experience learning loss over the summer, research also suggests those effects vary depending on children's access to books, enriching experiences, and opportunities to use language in meaningful ways. Reading together and completing academic activities certainly have a place, but they are only one piece of the puzzle.

Every season offers children new opportunities to build language, but summer may provide more opportunities than any other time of year. Whether your family is traveling across the country, enjoying a staycation, visiting grandparents, or simply spending more time together, everyday experiences become opportunities for conversation.

In many ways, vacation, or even a simple day trip, begins before you ever leave home. Narrating while you pack a suitcase, describing what you see out the car window, singing songs during a long drive, or pointing out airplanes overhead exposes infants to rich language long before they understand every word. As children grow, those same experiences become opportunities to ask questions, make predictions, make lists, read maps, identify license plates from different states, estimate distances, and connect what they see to what they already know. Long before you arrive at your destination, children are building vocabulary, sequencing skills, and background knowledge without even realizing it.

Some of my favorite literacy experiences don't look anything like school. They happen in the everyday moments families already share. Around the dinner table, an infant may simply watch, listen, and hear new words as caregivers talk and narrate. A toddler may help stir ingredients, name foods, or describe what they taste, while older children might read a recipe, compare ingredients, order from a menu, or help create a shopping list. Grocery stores and farmers markets offer similar opportunities as children read labels, compare products, estimate quantities, and help find items on the list.

The same is true for the activities our children already love. Whether your family spends weekends at baseball games, gymnastics meets, basketball tournaments, dance recitals, or soccer matches, every event creates opportunities for conversation and learning. As children grow, they begin reading schedules, player names, scoreboards, statistics, programs, maps, and websites while asking questions about the game, the people, and the places around them.

Perhaps my favorite part of this idea is that it has nothing to do with how much money a family spends. A week at Disney World and a morning at your local library can both spark rich conversations, introduce new vocabulary, and create lasting memories. A neighborhood walk can lead to discussions about construction vehicles, flowers, insects, weather, or community helpers. Visiting a local park, attending free library programs, exploring a museum on a free admission day, taking the Staten Island Ferry, cooking a new recipe together, or simply watching airplanes fly overhead can all build the same foundation for literacy.

When literacy is connected to children's interests and everyday experiences, they naturally become curious and motivated to learn more. Children don't measure experiences by their price tag. They remember the conversations they had, the questions they asked, and the discoveries they made alongside someone who was present and engaged.

Whether your family is taking a vacation, enjoying a staycation, or simply making the most of everyday moments at home, meaningful learning is still happening. Every new experience adds to your child's vocabulary and background knowledge, helping them make sense of the stories they'll read and the world they'll continue to explore.

This summer, my goal isn't to choose between academics and experiences. It's to recognize that both have value. We'll continue reading together, visit the library, complete some academic work, and maintain routines, but we'll also embrace the conversations that naturally happen while living life.

So as you head into the rest of the summer, don't just ask, "How many pages did we read today?" Also ask, "What did we experience today? What new words did we learn? What questions did we ask? What did we discover together?"

Whether your child is six months old or ten years old, every conversation, every outing, and every shared experience is helping build the language and knowledge they will one day bring to the books they read. The journey toward literacy begins in infancy through relationships, conversation, and curiosity, growing stronger with every new experience along the way. Reading together will always matter, but so will the life children bring to the books they read. Every conversation, every place they explore, and every experience they have becomes part of the meaning they bring to the next book they open.

The Research Behind This Post

This article is informed by decades of research on children's oral language development, vocabulary acquisition, background knowledge, and reading comprehension. Research consistently demonstrates that responsive adult-child conversations, rich language experiences, and opportunities to build knowledge about the world support later language, literacy, and reading comprehension. The ideas shared throughout this article have been shaped by the work of I. L. Beck and M. G. McKeown on vocabulary development, E. D. Hirsch Jr. on the role of background knowledge in reading comprehension, C. E. Snow on oral language development, and the findings of the National Reading Panel on vocabulary and reading comprehension instruction.

While this article focuses on summer, the larger message extends far beyond one season. Literacy development is not confined to classrooms, workbooks, or even books themselves. It begins in infancy and continues through the everyday interactions, conversations, and experiences that help children make sense of the world long before they learn to read it independently.

From the Reading Start

Welcome to the Reading Start!

Why I Created The Reading Start

I believe the journey toward literacy begins in infancy, long before a child enters a classroom.

Long before they enter kindergarten, children are building the foundation for language, literacy, learning, and future success through everyday moments shared with the people who love them most.

Children learn through responsive interactions with their parents and caregivers. A bedtime story, a conversation in the grocery store, reading a menu at a restaurant, spotting a stop sign on the way to school, singing songs in the car, writing a grocery list together, baking cookies, or upholding traditions that are important to your family may seem like ordinary moments, but they are anything but ordinary.

These experiences become the foundation upon which children build language, literacy, curiosity, and a lifelong love of learning.

For more than fifteen years, I have dedicated my career to helping children become successful readers. I've had the privilege of serving as a classroom teacher, literacy leader, researcher, and now Dean of Early Childhood. Throughout each role, one question continued to stay with me:

Why do some children enter school ready to thrive while others are already struggling before formal instruction even begins?

That question led me to pursue my Ph.D. in Literacy. My doctoral research focused on the home literacy environment and explored how the everyday interactions between parents, caregivers, and young children shape literacy development long before a child ever enters a classroom.

Throughout my research, one message became impossible to ignore.

Parents matter because beliefs shape behavior, and behavior shapes children's everyday literacy experiences.

It feels fitting that I began studying the home literacy environment while my own son was just six months old. Like many first-time parents, I wanted to know I was doing everything I could to support his development. I believed that if I understood the research, I could give him the strongest possible start.

Then life reminded me that research and real life don't always unfold the way we expect.

Years later, when my son began experiencing reading challenges in third grade, I found myself searching for answers just like any other parent. Even with years of experience teaching children to read and a doctorate in literacy, I relied on evaluations, specialists, and the guidance of wonderful professionals while quietly wondering if my instincts as his mother were telling me something different.

That experience reminded me that expertise matters, but so do relationships. The professionals who made the greatest difference weren't just knowledgeable. They listened, they cared, and they saw my son as an individual. They partnered with our family rather than simply providing answers. It also reminded me to trust both the evidence and my own observations as a parent. That's the kind of support I hope every family finds through The Reading Start.

It also deepened my empathy for families navigating questions about reading, learning, and development. I understand what it feels like to wonder if you're doing enough, to question whether you're making the right decisions, and to hope you're giving your child every opportunity to succeed.

I still believe the greatest opportunities for literacy growth happen in everyday life. I believe children learn through meaningful conversations, shared experiences, play, curiosity, relationships, and joyful experiences with language. I believe literacy should never feel like another item on a parent's to-do list.

That's why I created The Reading Start.

My mission is to bridge the gap between research and real life by helping parents understand how children learn to read and by sharing practical, evidence-based strategies that naturally fit into everyday routines.

After completing my Ph.D. in 2021, I returned to schools expecting to see meaningful changes in how we support families' home literacy environments. While incredible work has been done by researchers, nonprofit organizations, educators, and policymakers, I realized many of the same challenges still existed. It wasn't because people weren't trying. The research is strong.

The question I kept coming back to was:

How do we bridge the gap between what research tells us and what families actually experience?

The Reading Start is my answer to that question. My hope is that by empowering parents with trustworthy information and practical strategies, together we can help more children begin school with the strongest possible reading start.

Here you'll find research translated into real life. I'll share practical ideas you can use immediately, explain what the evidence actually says, and help you feel more confident in the everyday moments that matter most.

Whether you're preparing your infant for a lifetime of learning, wondering if your preschooler is ready for kindergarten, supporting your emerging reader, or searching for answers because reading doesn't seem to be coming easily, I hope The Reading Start becomes a trusted resource for your family.

My hope is simple.

I hope this becomes a place where research feels approachable, where questions are welcomed, and where parents feel supported rather than judged.

If something you read here helps you better understand your child, gives you one practical idea to try, or simply reminds you that you're not alone, then The Reading Start has accomplished exactly what I hoped it would.

Thank you for being here.

Welcome to The Reading Start.

Dr. Deirdre Cruz

About the Author

Dr. Deirdre Cruz is a literacy researcher, educator, Dean of Early Childhood, and founder of The Reading Start. She holds a Ph.D. in Literacy, where her doctoral research explored how the home literacy environment shapes children's early literacy development. With more than fifteen years of experience in education and the perspective of being a mother herself, Dr. Cruz is passionate about helping parents confidently support their children's literacy through practical, evidence-based guidance that fits naturally into everyday life.