Why Reading to Your Children is So Important

The benefits of reading to your children are more than just a way to quiet them down before bedtime.  In fact, if you embrace the habit of reading to your children throughout the day, you’ll find a number of excellent side-effects!

Improved Imagination and Creativity

When you’re not exposed to fantastic stories with magical endings or far-away places, you don’t develop a sense of wonder, awe, and imagination.

Creativity comes naturally to many but can be developed through exposure to creative concepts and themes. 

How my heart sang when my children played dress up, living out imaginary characters with life or death problems that needed to be solved.  And through their imagination and creativity, they always solved the problems of the character of the day.

Although I am not a creative person by nature, (my husband may be a little more so), our children all grew up with an enormous amount of creativity and imagination. They wrote their own scripts, made their own movies, created epic Lego movies, developed excellent creative writing skills, and had great adventures with American Girl dolls.  I attribute that to early and often exposure to reading.

Development of Self

Children will become curious, thoughtful, and calmer.

They’ll develop critical thinking skills as they go through the events of stories with the main characters.  They see how problems are approached and solved.  This is all important to understand when you’re choosing books.  DON’T choose ‘popular’ books that reinforce concepts, characters, or values that you don’t want your children to emulate.

Increased Attention Span

Sitting down with your children for 10 -20+ minutes, depending on their age, helps with increased attention span.  We live in an age where ADD/ADHD is often diagnosed too quickly.  Attention/listening is a habit that is often neglected but should be nurtured.  Like any habit, a small child must be introduced to it, then gradually helped to develop stamina.  Reading helps children develop the stamina to pay attention.

Brain Development

When you increase the activity and challenge of the brain, the brain responds and stimulates brain growth. 

Reading to your child is an extremely effective method of stimulating brain growth.  Although many books for younger children have excellent pictures, they are infrequent enough during the reading of the text that children are ‘forced’ to focus on what you’re saying, rather than what they see.  Without visual cues, the brain is trained to listen.  And that skill applies to all aspects of life. 

 We are living in a culture with a huge saturation of visual cues.  We’re not developing the auditory cues.  And we wonder why the children don’t listen to us?  We haven’t helped them train that part of their brain.

But the world is a bit short on good fairies, these days.  So who is to take their place?  Who is to make sure that our children’s sense of wonder grows indestructible with the years?  We are.  You and I.

Katherine Paterson, A Sense of Wonder

When you Read to Your Children You are Developing Better Readers

I have taught children to read for over 20 years.  I can tell you – without a shadow of a doubt – parents who read to children from age 1 – 10+ are better readers (assuming there are no learning issues going on).

•  Increased Vocabulary Children are exposed to words that they don’t use in their everyday language.  Classics are all written with excellent grammar structure and precisely chosen words. It was a kick to hear my 1^st graders shout with glee, “Hey, look at those cygnets!” while we were on a walk in the spring.  We had just finished reading “The Trumpet of the Swan”.

• Increased Concentration When you read an interesting book to your children that is age appropriate, you’ll be amazed at how long they can sit still!  Be careful that you don’t pick a book just because you loved it!  “Lord of the Rings” is too difficult to understand (and too long to engage) for an 8 yr old.  Work up reading stamina with easy books to begin with.  Twenty minutes is usually a good starting point for 5 yr olds. You’ll often find that they want you to continue, although never force them to sit for longer than 5 minutes. If you find you don’t have their attention, try a different book or genre.

• Reading Comprehension It’s a great idea to stop occasionally and ask your children what they think will happen next or why a character acted a certain way.  It helps the children not only listen, but really think about what is going on in the story and predict an outcome.

‘Smarter’ Children

The greatest educational benefit of reading to your children is that they will fall in love with learning.  And when children are excited to learn the next new thing, rather than it being a boring challenge, they will learn and retain more.

When we read to them about heffalumps and woozles, magical forests, small hobbits, King Arthur and his knights, and fish and sharks who live in the ocean, we are teaching them about the real and imaginary world through the painting of pictures with our words.  Reading is not drudgery.  Reading is exciting because they never know what they’ll hear next.

They will develop a natural interest in books and in learning to see what they can discover.

As a primary teacher and mom of 7 (all of whom I home schooled for the elementary years), I can tell you that a game-changer in all my students’ thought processes was reading to them.

The Greatest Benefit of Reading to Your Children?

The very best benefit of reading to your children is the time you spend together.  Most children have the love language of touch and time together.  As you sit side by side, or with a child in your lap, you fulfill both love languages – as well as YOUR love language of time with your child.

You go on great adventures together that will bond you and your child for life.   

If you want curious, thoughtful children who love to read and learn, stop all the distractions in your life, sit down and enjoy reading to your children!   

Do you have a book you’ve loved reading to your children? Post in comments below!

Have a great week!

Janet

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