Reading has a big impact on how kids grow and learn. Lots of studies have shown their positive impact in development of minds of children. For this reason parents must understand the importance of reading and need to ensure that kids read every day.
Reading to kids, whether it’s a cool story or a fairy tale at bedtime, can really help your child in many ways.
Here are a few benefits of reading books:
- Helping their brains grow
- Ability to learn and write better
- Getting them ready for academics
- Making a special connection with your child
- Helping them focus and behave better
- Making them more creative and dreamy
- Teaching them to love reading forever.
1. Helping their brains grow
Reading books to young children has been shown to improve their thinking skills and aid in their cognitive development. Cognitive development is the ability to think and understand. It involves how a person processes information, uses intelligence, reasons, develops language, focuses attention, and remembers things.
When you start reading out loud to kids, it gives them a better understanding of their world, which helps them make sense of what they see, hear, and read. Introducing reading to young children will spark a sense of curiosity in them and help them understand their own lives, especially at a young age.
Some brain cells become active due to this experience. Existing connections between brain cells become stronger. Meanwhile, new brain cells are created, adding more complexity to the intricate network that will largely remain in place for the rest of these children’s lives.
2. Ability to learn and write better
Reading to young children every day, starting when they are babies, can help them learn language, communication, social, and literacy skills. When you read to your kids from a very young age, it helps their brains understand language and develop important skills. Studies show that reading with kids at home early on can activate parts of the brain related to visualising and understanding language.
Children hear words and language around them. But, learning to read the language of books, helps them in knowing about another way of speech. The book language is different from everyday language. Books use more detailed descriptions and formal grammar, whether it’s a children’s story or a classic novel.
3.Make them ready for academics
Reading with your child early on is a special time for you both to talk and listen. It helps kids learn new words and how to listen well, which are important for doing well in school. The more words kids know, the better they can read, and the more likely they do well from preschool to high school.
There are five key reading skills kids need to learn:
- Hearing sounds in words
- Connecting letters to sounds
- Knowing important words
- Understanding what they read
- Reading smoothly and quickly.
Even though kids will learn these skills in school later on, reading to them when they’re babies and toddlers can give them a head start. They might not be able to read fluently or know all their letters yet, but they can start learning about sounds, words, and understanding stories early on.
4. Making a special connection with the child
Reading to the child regularly, especially in early stages, helps in forging a strong bond with them. Spending time with children will influence them positively and aid in overall development. Trust develops and curiosity sparks in the children when books are read to them daily.
The benefit of reading a book that is favourite to the children is, it creates intimacy and makes them close to parents. The young ones, especially the babies cannot read or understand the words that parents say. But they want to hear familiar voices regularly to feel safe.
Scientifically speaking, reading to the child regularly provides them with a constant source of knowledge that they likely look forward to everyday.
Reading together with children as a shared activity will improve their vocabulary and writing skills. Ultimately helping them to have creative and positive thoughts that aid them academically and socially.
5. Helping them focus and behave better
Reading increases their focus and makes them more disciplined. In the initial stages kids may show restlessness during the reading process. But they will eventually start enjoying the process of the topics and fun.
Studies show that reading books aid in self-discipline, long attention time, and better memory to the people especially the children.
6. Making them more creative and dreamy
Kids are really good at dreaming big and using their imaginations. When you read to children, it helps them imagine all sorts of different things like people, places, and events that they might not have experienced before.
Reading can help children explore new worlds and ideas. By expanding your child’s imagination, they might start dreaming even bigger and being more creative, which can help them in school, work, and life later on.
7. Teaching them to love reading forever
Every time a book is read to the child, they derive some pleasure. A human’s ability to learn and thrive for knowledge is a necessity. Continuous learning aids in expanding the brain capacity and aids to succeed in life. Reading is one such skill that we must inculcate in kids from a young age. This skill develops discipline and pleasure to read more books in the future.
Reading books helps children with improved thought process, vocabulary and have a better creative side. Parents need to read books to their children to improve their reading and writing skills. This makes them academically ready and helps them with proper behaviour especially in social settings.
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