The benefits of reading for children

“When I was two, I already knew all the letters! And at three – I read! ” – boasts my friend. Even before kindergarten, I learned to read myself. And my daughter learned to read quite early. In general, mothers try to put this skill in the child’s head as early as possible. But often they themselves cannot justify why. And what’s wrong with this skill? It’s great when a child can entertain himself, while not looking at the screen of the gadget, but concentrating on turning the pages of the book.

That, by the way, is the whole problem with gadgets: they are much more successful at coping with the task of entertaining a child than books. But it is still worth trying to instill in your child a love of reading. Why? Woman’s Day was answered by educator, children’s librarian, art teacher and child development specialist Barbara Friedman-DeVito. So reading …

Numerous studies have shown that those children with whom they read together before school and who themselves have already begun to read at least a little, will find it easier to master other subjects. But if there is no reading skill, and texts of more than two or three sentences are frightening, it will be difficult for him to cope with the program. Formally, the kid is not required to be able to read by the time of the first trip to school, it will be taught in the first grade. But in reality, the reality is that a child will have to work with textbooks on their own almost immediately. In addition, reading at home develops such useful qualities as perseverance, the ability to hold attention, which, of course, helps to adapt to school activities.

What to read: “The first day at school”.

Reading is the best speech development tool. Even babies who only imitate reading by making sounds of animals drawn in a picture or repeating the characters’ lines after their mother develop important pronunciation skills, correct intonation, and understanding that words are made up of syllables and separate sounds.

From books, the child learns not only new words, but also their meaning, lettering, the way they are read. The latter, however, is true only for those children to whom they read aloud. Children who have read a lot to themselves may misplace some words, or even misunderstand their meaning.

For example. In first grade, my six-year-old daughter read the exercise about the soft toy circle. In her understanding, a circle is what the head of a soft toy will be sewn from. By the way, this is still our family joke: “Go and comb your hair.” But then I fell into a stupor, trying to explain the meaning of the phrase, obvious to me, but incomprehensible to the child.

What to read: “Tibi on the farm.”

This is not visible to the naked eye. But thanks to reading, the child learns to understand the connection between different events and phenomena, between cause and effect, to distinguish between falsehood and truth, to critically comprehend information. These are cognitive skills.

In addition, reading teaches you to understand the emotions and reasons for the actions of other people. And empathy with the heroes of the books helps to develop empathy. From books you can learn how people talk with friends and strangers, how they offer friendship or express anger, how they sympathize in trouble and rejoice, take offense and get jealous. The child expands his ideas about emotions and learns to express them, to explain how he is feeling and why, instead of silently sulking, crying or screaming.

What to read: Possum Peak and Forest Adventure.

It is rarely talked about, but there is something akin to meditation in focused, enthusiastic reading. We stop reacting to the world around us and completely immerse ourselves in the story we read about. Usually, in this case, the child is in a quiet place where there is no noise, where no one distracts him, he is relaxed. His brain also rests – if only because he doesn’t need to multitask. Reading provides relaxation and self-absorption habits that reduce everyday stress and help in stressful situations.

What to read: “Zverokers. Where did the drummer go? “

This is not only about children, but also about adults. At any age, through reading, we can experience something that will never happen to us in reality, visit the most incredible places and feel in the place of a variety of characters, from animals to robots. We can try on other people’s fates, eras, professions, situations, we can test our hypotheses and formulate new ideas. We can without any risk satisfy our passion for adventure or bring a murderer to the surface, we can learn to say “no” or take responsibility for our actions using literary examples, we can master the vocabulary of love or spy on ways to resolve conflicts. In a word, reading makes any person, even a little one, much more experienced, intelligent, mature and interesting – both for himself and in the company.

What to read: “Leelu is investigating. Is our neighbor a spy? “