Reading aloud to your children is essential. Longtime elementary-school teacher Kim Jocelyn Dickson believes every child begins kindergarten with a lunchbox in one hand and an “invisible toolbox” in the other. In The Invisible Toolbox, Kim shares with parents the single most important thing they can do to foster their child’s future-learning potential and nurture the parent-child bond that is the foundation for a child’s motivation to learn. She is convinced that the simple act of reading aloud has a far-reaching impact that few of us fully understand and that the importance of that act has recently been further occluded by our nearly universal saturation in technology.

In The Invisible Toolbox, Kim weaves her practical anecdotal experience as an educator and parent into the hard research of recent findings in neuroscience. She reminds us that the first years of life are critical in the formation and receptivity of the primary predictor of success in school―language skills―and that infants begin learning immediately at birth. She also teaches and inspires us to build our own toolboxes so that we can help our children build theirs.