Benefits of reading with your baby

The joy of being read to as a child cannot be overlooked, with simple reading with a child helping the child to develop a bright future.  

Reading to babies helps in the following ways:

• It brings about closeness of one-to-one attention and thrills the imagination as the child’s favorite stories leap from the pages into the mind.

• Reading stories develops the language, reasoning, empathy and imagination of the children.

• It helps children to develop a sense of the world and making them to think independently, communicate and relate to others.

• Reading is something different generations can enjoy together; encouraging children to read makes a significant impact on their educational attainment.

• Children engaged in reading books themselves love a particular character in a book and can be easily encouraged to engage in literature. The familiarity of these characters makes them a part of their life, offering real comfort and solace in the busy and sometimes a world impossible to understand.

• Reading offers not only a pleasure, but it also relief and solace during the stressful periods like a death in the family or a pet, a trip to the doctor or dentist or on the first day of school. It helps the child to come to terms with what is happening, making it less frightening.

• Again you would also find that a child that has explored the difficult emotional areas of his/her life within the safety of the pictures and words in the book would understand the right way to express emotions and reactions when certain situations arise.

A word of caution; though reading traditional fairy tales with morals is good for your children, be wary of some unhelpful thoughts like a princesses must have long hair and being saved by a prince and men are doers and fixers in the house from entering their heads. Encourage them to read books like The Snow Queen, The Magic Paintbrush and in the feisty heroine in Babette Cole’s Princess Smartypants with strong, courageous and determined female characters and funny books like Man on the Moon where a man has to keep the moon spic and span.  

Avoid making an issue of your child not being interested in reading books; some of the most reluctant readers would be soon bitten by the reading bug by using tactics as novelty books. These books offer an opportunity for children to easily flap, lift pages and turn wheels and pull tags. They also offer an element of surprise and awaken the curiosity of the most reluctant readers.

Once a child gets interested in reading books, the interest would be sustained; however boys are more difficult to engage than girls because girls develop learning languages sooner than boys. Boys can be encouraged to read by giving them books that interest them on topics like football, alien and ghosts. Also it is best to designate a set time for reading every day as boys get sidetracked by other things. Lastly do not overlook listening to your child read, do not push too much but encourage him/her to read.  

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