Reading To Babies And Young Children
Reading to young children is known to be extremely beneficial for learning, communication skills and emotional development. Reading to your children is one of the most important things you can do with them in the early years before they enter structured education. Reading to babies strengthens their natural instinct to listen to sounds and understand them, while reading to older children gives them new experiences and helps them expand their horizons and make sense of the world around them. As well as a good basis to learn to read for themselves, reading to babies and young children is a great way for a parent to bond and share time with them.
This site was born as a result of a love of reading to our young children and a desire to document some of their favourite children’s books as they grew older. Below is some useful information listing the benefits of reading to your children and some tips that I, a father of two young children, think you might find useful. Afterwards, don’t forget to come and see which books for children we are reading at the moment.
Benefits Of Reading To Babies and Young Children
- Reading to babies helps them to learn to hear sounds and interpret them as language.
- Looking at a book encourages your baby to focus on shapes and colours on the page of a book, developing the eye muscles and sight system.
- Reading to very young children helps them to learn the words of their language and associate them with things in the world.
- Books can introduce young children to things and situations outside of their normal life, like strange animals and far away places. Children generally learn by experience but at a young age, their everyday world is quite small.
- Reading to babies and young children encourages a closeness with you, their parents, and promotes the special bond between you.
- Stories can help children understand other peoples emotions, help them predict outcomes and fuel their imagination.
- The best thing about reading to babies and children is - it’s fun for them (and hopefully, you too!)
Tips for Reading to Babies and Toddlers
- Make sure that your baby is sitting so that they can see the book the correct way up. Babies learn quite quickly that we, in the western world, read from left to right and young children soon know which page to turn over.
- As well as reading the books title and text, describe some of the pictures or events shown on each page of the book. Keep it fairly simple for small babies, they will often try to turn the page when they want to see the next bit.
- As your baby gets older, point out some detail and say the word. Or ask them to point to something that you think they know.
- Don’t forget to point out colours when reading to books to your baby.
- Read in a soft, friendly voice and try not to distress your child with your overdramatic impersonations of an ogre.
- Make sure that when reading to your baby, it is fun. If your baby does not seem to like a book, put it away and find something else.
- Make sure that you have some soft books or board books that you can leave in your baby’s cot so that they can explore them on their own. Young children should be encouraged to choose their own books and have a special place in their room to keep them.
Tips for Reading to Older Toddlers and Pre-School Age Children.
- As your child grows and their knowledge increases, introduce more complex stories but don’t forget their old favourites. Children like the predictability of a book they have heard a hundred times.
- When reading to your young children, leave space in between your speech to encourage comments and questions. You could also try missing out words and leaving gaps for you child to answer, perhaps pointing at the picture instead. Rhyming books are great for this because it is easier for your child to guess the last word of a sentence.
- Some people advocate that you point along the text with your finger while reading to young children. I have never got on with this, as it distracts me from reading the story and can cover any pictures on the page. There does, however, seem to be a stage in a child’s development when they suddenly get interested in “the words” printed in the book.
- When reading a story, ask your child what they think might happen next or how a particular character is feeling.
Above all, make sure that reading to your child is fun for them - and you!!!
Have a look at what Jack and Megan are reading in Today’s Book.
Rob
