Reading is important and it’s never too early for a child to start. Preschool reading offers many benefits. By encouraging your child to read and reading with them you will both benefit.
Basic Speech Skill
Critical language and enunciation skills are learned in early childhood. It is important for parents to begin reading to their child as soon as possible. When your child listens to you read, it strengthens their knowledge of the basic sounds that create language.
When a toddler pages through a book and “pretends” to read aloud, making happy sounds is an important prelude to learning to read.They are mimicking how their parents read to them. During the preschool years, children typically begin sounding out words on their own.
Preschool reading has been linked to children having a better understanding of language fundamentals when they near school age.
Book Reading Basics
The fact that text is read from left to right and that the pictures are not part of the text is not something that a child instinctively knows. These are essential basic skills a child can gain from preschool reading with their parents.
Builds Communication Skills
Reading to your child can encourage healthy self-expression and communication skills. Observing the interaction between the characters in the book as well as their interaction with you will encourage valuable communication skills.
Promotes Logical Thought
Preschool reading can help children to grasp abstract concepts such as cause and effect, applying logic and using good judgement. A preschooler will be more enthusiastic about the stories you read together. They will begin to relate the theme of a story to what they experience in their own world.
Encourage Concentration and Discipline
At first a child may fidget and easily become distracted while you are reading with them. In time, they will settle down and focus on the story. Not only does story time increase reading comprehension, it also will strengthen self discipline, increase attention span and improve memory retention. These are all skills that will benefit a child when they begin school.
Academic Success
A significant benefit of preschool reading is an overall increased aptitude for learning. If a child has difficulty forming words and creating sentences, it will be beyond difficult for them to understand math or science as well as social situations they may encounter when attending school.
Multiple studies have shown that children exposed to reading in early childhood will do better in all facets of formal education.
Adjust to New Experiences
Children are often uncomfortable trying something new or adjusting to a new environment. Relating their situation to a story you’ve shared with them or something one of their favorite characters has experienced may streamline your child’s transition.
Strengthen Parent/Child Relationship
The early childhood years are the perfect time to build a strong bond your child. Reading together and sharing their favorite stories is a perfect opportunity to nurture your relationship while improving their reading skills.
Make Reading Fun
It great to establish a reading routine with your child but if either of you are too tired or ill, don’t force it. Make it something you both look forward to. Don’t let it become a chore for either of you.
Turn off the television and any other devices and focus on one-on-one time with your child. Children who develop a love of reading early will carry it throughout their life and often choose it over other forms of entertainment.
Home Away From Home Academy is a leader in early childhood education.We believe that every child has an instinctive need to learn from birth. Awakening student‘s intellectual potential and encouraging them to communicate with confidence in their own unique voice remains our passion. Contact us today and invest in your child’s future.