It’s never too soon to start reading to your baby or toddler. If you have spent time reading to your children, you have already experienced the fun and joy your child gets from hearing a good book.
Prepare Young Children for School Success
Your child gets bonding time from being close, which is only the start. Children love the familiarity of favorite stories and guessing what’s going to happen next. They also have fun participating in page turning, naming letters and exploring pictures. These activities will actually contribute to your child’s school success.
For success in school, many tasks depend on a child’s ability to read and comprehend instructions. Starting on this important skill early will teach your child to love reading and that it is not difficult.
Be Your Child’s First Teacher
At an early age, start a routine of reading to your child if you hope to have strong readers when they begin school. Teachers aren’t the only ones to develop literacy skills.
Age appropriate books for your baby or toddler can speed the process. As they learn, you can progress to the next level. Smaller babies enjoy learning colors and objects, and toddlers seem anxious to learn letters and numbers. Characters and a story line become more important as they progress past these stages of reading.
A routine is important and gives your child something to anticipate, when it comes to reading or story time. A familiar space and routine will also help them look forward to reading as a special event, even if it is part of a bedtime routine. You can still make it special by letting your child pick the story, but you need to budget reading time because it will teach them to set aside a certain amount of time for reading.
Reading every day is something your child will look forward to, and you can let them participate by turning the page or pointing to the animals as you read about them. You will need to take turns if you have more than one child, and it teaches the children to share by playing games such as finding certain letters, and talking about the story.
A trip to the zoo is a good field trip after you have read books about animals to them and helps them relate a book to real life. You can also have them point out shapes, words or other things when you make daily trips to the store or a field trip to a place you have read to them about.
Some of the Other Benefits of Reading
Books are wonderful for teaching children new things. New experiences, such as starting school or a trip to the dentist, can be scary for a child. Reading a book that tells how another child has dealt with it will make it manageable for your child and will help them put words to their fears.
Reading to your child is just as important as your child seeing you read. If it has been a while since you have read to your child, you should start as soon as possible. You need to allow your child to see you reading, so pick out a book on the next trip to the library that interests you, besides the ones your child picks out.
Reading with your child teaches more than the function of reading, it creates a bond that will last a lifetime and prepares your child for reading in school. Learning the skill early is a good way to give a child a strong start in life.