How Reading Affects Your Child’s Life.
You can start teaching your child essential academic skills at a very young age.
Reading to a child is never superfluous, and reading to them as much as possible helps them learn. Reading has various benefits, starting from quality time together and parent bonding to assisting them in being successful in school.
Finally, it helps to increase your child’s confidence and self-esteem as well.
What are the main benefits of reading to your little one?
The importance of books for children cannot be overstated. Reading aloud to children is a favorite activity for them. The first poems and stories that a baby hears are from parents, and if parents encourage their children to read, the book will likely become the child’s best friend.
Why reading is so important?
For the reason that a book:
- It helps to expand a child’s understanding of the world by introducing them to everything that surrounds them: nature, objects, and so on.
- Reading helps to develop thinking skills in children, both logical and symbolic, and expand their vocabulary, memory, and imagination.
- Reading helps to teach children how to form sentences correctly.
Children who have their parents read aloud to them regularly begin to comprehend the structure of a literary work (where the beginning starts, how the plot unfolds, where the end comes). Reading teaches the child to pay attention, which is an important skill to have as a child. A child’s knowledge of a native language improves due to their exposure to books. Having their parents read to them is something that most children enjoy doing.
Reading aloud is also beneficial for children who are capable of reading a book on their own. Family reading time is a source of well-being, a means of communication between parents and children, an educational method, and a pleasurable way to spend time together. Because of this, mom and dad should always set aside some time each day to read to their children.
Psychologists believe that children to whom parents read books are emotionally balanced and confident.
What happens in moments of shared reading?
- Children who are read often feel closeness, security, safety. Such children are much more comfortable with their lives than those deprived of the joy of reading.
- While reading together, children form a moral attitude toward the world. The books’ characters do different things, get into false situations, make decisions – all this the child can discuss with the parent, forming an understanding of good and evil, friendship and betrayal, sympathy, duty, honor.
- In active listening, the child vividly imagines what is being narrated and experiences. In these moments, they develop emotionally and often identifies with the main character, overcoming their fears.
- Listening to a piece of literature, the child inherits various behaviors through the book: for example, how to be a good comrade, how to achieve a goal, or how to resolve a conflict. The role of parents here is to help compare situations from the fairy tale with situations that can happen in real life.
Few tips on how to develop a child’s love of reading.
- Ensure that good books surround a child. Before being cognitively ready to read, your child should develop an interest in reading to be successful. Keeping a collection of brightly colored and exciting books within easy reach is an integral part of instilling that desire in children.
- Read to your child regularly. Reading is beneficial to your child in a variety of ways. Children receive the entertainment value from hearing a remarkable story. Studies have shown that children’s vocabulary grows exponentially from a very young age simply by hearing words read aloud by their parents. It contributes to their academic success and ability to communicate effectively with others throughout his life.
- When your children are ready to read themselves, determine which books might interest them the most. It is great if you have read these books yourself as a child and discuss the book’s plot together. Your child will be interested in hearing your opinion and listening to what you think about the situation in the book or the main character. In this way, you can guide your child in understanding right and wrong, explaining what actions are good and what situations in life are best avoided.
- When you explain to your children the importance of reading, make sure that you are also setting an example. Your child needs to see you reading and understand that you are doing so for your enjoyment and obtaining the information you need to be successful. Set a good example for your child, and they will come to regard reading as a necessary skill in their lives.
If you’ve noticed that your kid struggle with reading, LEARN MORE on Understood website.
Can I use reading toys to teach my child to read?
And my answer is unequivocal YES! After all, the best way to teach children something new is to involve them in play activity.
Through brightly colored educational toys, the child will learn to quickly recognize letters and sounds.
One of the best manufacturers of toys for learning to read, in my opinion, is LeapFrog.
LeapFrog LeapBuilders ABC Smart House Interactive Learning Blocks Playset
Will be your indispensable aid in learning letters even for the youngest. The toy can be used by children as young as 18 months old.
How does it work?
First of all, I like toys that carry several functions. Otherwise, the house turns into a toy warehouse. What could be better than a toy that combines all in one?
The LeapFrog LeapBuilders ABC Smart House Interactive Learning Blocks Playset is just that all-in-one toy.
In order to start learning letters, a child needs to assemble a house of 60 colored parts. I wrote earlier about the usefulness of constructors. For more information please click HERE.
When the house is assembled, 20 Smart blocks will help to hear 40 sounds and phrases. This is the introductory process. In addition to letters, this toy also teaches numbers and quantities.
BEAURE Toddler Learning Tablet
Simple, but very useful learning toy!
This tablet includes 23 words, 10 numbers, and teaches colors.
A couple of things that appeal to me the most about this toy:
1. In addition to entertaining at home, the tablet will be a good entertainment on the go. Instead of electronic gadgets, this alternative continuously educate your child
2. The volume of the tablet is adjastable (For me, this is almost the most important features! )
VTech Touch & Learn Activity Desk
I’m going back to multifunctional toys again—an interactive table with double-sided cards with numbers, letters, animals, fun music, and many other features.
This table will help in learning to read and write. Kids clearly will not be bored to sit at such a table – more than 160 vocabulary words and more than thirty tasks to consolidate the result.
When kids needs to rest, the table turns into a drawing board. You only need to turn it upside down. Isn’t it a wonderful readin writing toy?
Kiddies’ Stage ABC
This is the perfect development and reading writing toy! The number of functions in it is just huge.
- Vowels and consonants are separated by color. All the vowels are red. It helps kids to memorize the alphabet better.
- For teaching writing, the set includes 52 uppercase letters and 182 lowercase letters.
- The magnetic board is also a place for writing. By the way, the set includes two pens and an eraser.
- The letters easily adhere to all magnetic surfaces. In my case, the refrigerator was my daughter’s favorite place to stick the letter magnets.
- One of the most important factors: all letters are made of non-toxic materials, environmentally friendly EVA foam and they are easy to clean!