Steve Harvey welcomes 5-year-old Atlanta bookworm

Five-year-old Daliyah Arana of Gainesville talks with host Steve Harvey. Arana, who made national headline earlier this year after reading more than 2,000 books, will be a guest on Harvey's  show on Wednesday. Contributed

Five-year-old Daliyah Arana of Gainesville talks with host Steve Harvey. Arana, who made national headline earlier this year after reading more than 2,000 books, will be a guest on Harvey's show on Wednesday. Contributed

Five-year-old Daliyah Arana of Gainesville, who made national headlines earlier this year after reading more than 2,000 books, will be a guest Wednesday on the “Steve Harvey” show.

The show airs weekdays locally at 3 p.m. on FOX 5 Atlanta (WAGA).

Even at age 4, Daliyah understood how books opened the world to us.

We can thank her parents Haleema and Miguel Arana for that.

Daliyah was just 18 months old when her mother realized she could actually read. “Ann’s Big Muffin.” “Fat Cat.” “Daddy and Me.” You name it. Daliyah could read it.

When she first took a book from her mother’s hands and proclaimed she could read it on her own, Haleema Arana said, “I thought she’d memorized the words.”

Haleema decided to download a sight word app on her iPad and discovered her little girl actually knew the words. A lot of words.

“I got so excited,” Arana said. “The more words she learned, the more she wanted to learn. She went from two- and three-letter words to four and five letters and on and on it went.”

Until finally, in June 2016, little Daliyah had read 1,000 books.