There are lots of ways to read, ways that have improved the experience and opened up the world of literature to people who otherwise would have missed out. Ebooks are awesome. Audiobooks are spectacular.

They let you read anywhere. They let you read faster. They let you read while you’re multitasking. All from the convenience of a device in your pocket smaller than the smallest book.

But that’s sort of the problem isn’t it? Your kids have no idea that that is what you’re using your phone for. To them, you could just as easily be on Twitter. You could be answering emails and working like you always do. You could be betting on sports.

It’s important, especially when they’re young, that your kids see you reading, reading physical books. So they can see reading as the standalone, essential activity that it is. Let them see you in a chair, engrossed in a novel. Let them see you on a plane, reading a business book instead of spacing out in front of a screen. Let them see the big stack of biographies on your nightstand. As Horace Mann said, no parent has the right to raise their kids in a home without books.

Your phone is not a book. The books inside it are wonderful, but are not quite the same thing. They don’t make the same statement. They don’t teach the same lesson.

Let them see you reading physical books!

We think this idea—that you have a responsibility to make reading a part of your children’s life—is so important that in The Daily Dad book, the entire month of September is on the theme. The month of September in The Daily Dad: 366 Meditations on Parenting, Love, and Raising Great Kids is titled, “Raise A Reader”—it’s 30 days full of stories and lessons in learning, curiosity, and how to raise a reader.