Don't skip summer reading with your kids. It really matters.

We tend to relax a bit more in the summer -- bedtimes get later, and many routines go out the window -- but don't let up on family reading. I can recite my children's favorite picture books, from "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" to "Dr. Seuss's ABC" and "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom." For young children, there's no such thing as too much of a good thing, so favorites get read again and again. Reading routines are special and they reach far beyond literacy skills.

From infancy to early childhood the brain is rapidly generating connections, which are strengthened or pruned, based on experiences. Complex skills, like reading, rely on connections between many brain regions that are established through exposure and practice. And it is the repetition that generates and strengthens these connections. Even if a teething toddler chews on a board book. Even if they wiggle and turn pages out of turn and get distracted. It's all part of the process, so don't give up.

When kids are going through routines over and over again ("routine" being the key word), it's comforting. The repetition can get boring for parents, but your little one is learning everything there is to know about reading. A child is processing much more than the story. They are understanding how a book actually works.

They learn that spoken words correlate to words on a page. Pages are turned right-to-left but words are read left-to-right. Illustrations bring words to life, but the reader's imagination also gets to fill in the blanks. This is how a child begins to master literacy.

Make shared reading time as interactive as possible. Talk about what's going on in the pictures. Infuse personality and use different voices for different characters. Change the reading pace to match the pace with the events in the story. Ask your child questions and create opportunities for discussions during the story. Encourage predictions and note changes in emotions. Reading fosters empathy. Plus, talking about the story will not only help a child meet their early literacy goals, but it will also expand their vocabulary and speaking skills.

Parents may be surprised to see their child's understanding of the same book grow and change. Answers to the same questions may vary as a child considers all of the possibilities in a simple picture book. If a child knows a story so well after reading it so many times, hand the book to him. Let him "read" it to you. Even if it's just pretend.

It's OK to read the same book over and over. When a child has heard a story so many times that they know every word, it shows they have mastered an important language and literacy activity, which develops a sense of accomplishment, or self-efficacy.

Many things are going on in the world that distract us from one another. A reading routine lets a grown-up and child spend time together. It reinforces that sense of quality time that translates into love. When a kid gets to pick out a book and sit down to read, it says: I'm really important to this grown-up. It's an opportunity for the parents to also slow down, put their phones away and say, "Wow, this is really meaningful." It helps cement that bond.

My son is 7 years old now, and we read chapter books together instead of the same picture books over and over. We learn together and enjoy good stories together. These are the moments we will both cherish.