Image: Shutterstock
Reading is a healthy habit to cultivate from an early age, even if your child isn’t particularly a bookworm. Not everyone find’s solace in books, but reading to your kids is a very important activity to partake in when your kids are first starting to speak and frame sentences. Reading doesn’t just encourage your child’s imagination, it helps with their vocabulary and can improve their writing and reading skills as well. But if you have questions as to when you have to start reading to your child and why, we’ve got all the information right here. Read on to know more!
Why Is It Important To Read Out Loud To Your Kids?
Image: Shutterstock
Many parents read their kids a story book as a part of their night time routine without even questioning it. But have you ever wondered what the real benefits of doing this sweet activity might be? During infancy, reading to your baby is a great way to bond with them. No, they may not understand you, but they do understand that you are trying to engage with them, which makes all the difference. As your baby grows into a toddler, reading books can help them develop their language skills and promote a love for books which can come in handy in the future. If you avoid reading to your kids because you are not confident in your own abilities, that’s okay! You can always make up interesting stories, or tell them about stories from your childhood. Nowadays you also have the opportunity to listen to an audiobook with your baby as well. The point is to introduce your child to new vocabulary and provide them with good examples of correct grammar and sentence structure.
Reading to your kids from a young age stimulates their brain development and strengthens the parent-child dynamic. It also ensures that your kids build language, literacy, and socio-emotional skills. And infants begin to benefit from this fun activity from as early as 8 months old. Reading can assist your toddler in developing oral language skills, build their vocabulary, improve their speech patterns and increase their alphabet knowledge, which can all lead to better communication. Here are some main reasons to read aloud to your baby or little child:
- Reading can help your little one make the connection between the words they hear and their meaning.
- Listening to you read to them is a way to pick up pre-reading skills that can help your child become independent readers in the future.
- Reading out loud can teach your kids how to speak and listen.
- Reading can also improve memory as your child will learn to store all the new vocabulary they are exposed to.
- It helps kids develop critical thinking and basic reading concepts like following the words from the left side of the page to the right.
When Should You Start Reading To The Baby?
Image: Shutterstock
Your baby will benefit from you reading to them even when they are far too young to understand what you’re saying. It doesn’t matter if they get distracted by the colorful pictures or if you can’t get through a whole book. Reading to your little one is more about interacting with them and talking together. So, they don’t have to spend the entire time sitting still and listening to you. Encourage your toddlers to ask questions about the story and try to include songs and play in the dialogue to keep them engaged. You can also modulate your voice and change it for every main character or make animal noises in order to keep the story interesting. You can also add in financial expressions according to the story so that your child learns to recognize different emotions.
What Kind Of Books You Should Read To Your Baby
Image: Shutterstock
Choose a few kids books that you too enjoy reading. It’s okay if your child would rather you read the same book over and over again. Just like it’s okay if they want you to read a new one every night. Pick stories in which you can incorporate a lot of actions and movements to go along the storyline. For example, while reading ‘Humpty Dumpty’, you can pretend to fall down along with your little one. They will learn to anticipate this movement and get really excited about this. Keep in mind that repeating books isn’t bad, it will help your kids learn the meaning of words. As your child grows older they will want to read books that tell a story and have a definite ending.
Reading to your kids isn’t just nostalgic and fun but has great benefits as well. So, if you’d like to improve your baby’s reading skills and vocabulary, make sure to pick up a book once in a while and read to them!
Sources
- Early storybook reading and childhood development: A cross-sectional study in Iran, NCBI
- Reading Aloud to Children: Benefits and Implications for Acquiring Literacy Before Schooling Begins, NCBI
- Parents’ early book reading to children: Relation to children’s later language and literacy outcomes controlling for other parent language input, NCBI
