The Power of Reading Together
When military families face separations due to deployment or training, children often experience higher levels of emotional stress than their civilian peers. According to longitudinal studies by the RAND Corporation, one in three military children from active-duty families reports symptoms of anxiety.
United Through Reading (UTR) helps reduce this stress. When families use UTR videos, both children and caregivers experience less anxiety and greater emotional stability, making it easier to cope while their service members are away.
Research from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine shows that positive parenting practices—such as maintaining routines and sharing books—lead to stronger emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and social outcomes in children. UTR supports both by helping families create consistent bedtime routines centered around reading together, even when apart.
Reading aloud through UTR videos not only strengthens family bonds but also builds early literacy and language skills, expands vocabulary, and fosters a lifelong love of reading.
The Defense Centers of Excellence (DCoE) highlights that communication, emotional closeness, support, and nurturing are key to positive psychological health. United Through Reading promotes all these factors through the shared read-aloud experience—enhancing emotional well-being for service members, caregivers, and military children alike.
Get started reading as a family today! Download our user-friendly app.
"I loved how (United Through Reading) allowed me to connect with my daughter during this year-long assignment. I had made a habit since she was born to read to Lillian every day, so this program enabled me to continue that from afar,"
– Danielle Wilson.
At United Through Reading (UTR), we’re all about helping military families stay connected—no matter the distance. We encourage families to use every tool available to keep in touch, including video chats, emails, social media, and phone calls. However, these tools can come with challenges, which is why UTR recordings are an essential complement to them.
Service members often face obstacles such as:
• Different time zones that make it difficult to coordinate live calls.
• Limited or unreliable internet connections, sometimes for months at a time.
• Operational demands or safety concerns that prevent regular communication.
• Short attention spans in young children, making long video chats difficult.
With UTR, families don’t have to wait for the perfect time or connection. Children can watch and rewatch their loved ones’ storytime videos anytime they want—on their own schedule—bringing comfort, connection, and joy whenever they need it most.
RELIABLE when internet connections aren't.
REPEATABLE for kids to watch again and again.
ACCESSIBLE to children at any time they need their service member.
United Through Reading helps service members overcome the following challenges, such as it is hard to sync schedules from far away time zones, and not always having access to a strong, reliable internet connection, sometimes for months at a time.
Even when families can overcome the difference in time zones and schedules align, young children don't always have the attention span needed to focus on video chat.
And, as much as service members would like to establish a schedule for reaching their loved ones, their missions in a combat zone or operational activities may not allow them to because of time and safety reasons.
Having United Through Reading storytime recordings on hand means that children can spend quality time with their loved ones at any time, on their own schedule.
