8 Long Term Benefits of Reading to Your Child
Christine Whitfield, Center Director
07 Jan ,2017
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We’ve all heard the advice to read to kids, often and early. But what exactly are the long-term benefits of reading to your child at an early age? These benefits show the importance of reading to your child.
- A positive attitude towards reading and learning as an adult.
You won’t nag your child through school and tasks. Instead, they will be willing and eager to learn and do schoolwork. they will likely want to read on her own for fun, well into adulthood. This snowballs into a further desire to continue fine-tuning their skills. Or learning new ones and advancing as much as they can. - Higher vocabulary means success in school.
Much of school is still taught verbally. Kids learn from what the teacher is saying and explaining. So kids who know more words will understand their teachers and books more than those who don’t. Already the child who reads will have an advantage over those who don’t because they know more words. - Longer attention span.
Reading is challenging and requires some serious concentration. They’re piecing together a story they’re listening to. And later, they’re learning to read those words for themselves is challenging for any child. This practice helps build her attention span so they can remain focused and less likely to give up. - Encourages imagination.
Unlike movies or television shows, books have at most a few pages of illustrations. Everything else is up to your child to imagine. This imagination will help them think throughout school and into her career. - Expanding chain of knowledge.
Reading to your child now about trucks seems insignificant. But because they are introduced to trucks, they will then want to learn about other automobiles. And after that, the highways and bridges they travel on. From there, they will learn about the construction of bridges and what makes them hold. They might even build a bridge for a science experiment in school. And who knows where this passion will take them even further down the line. Introducing our kids to a wide variety of subjects now sets of a chain of knowledge they can’t wait to dig into. - Confidence.
Your child feels confident when they can relate to the stories they read. Or vice versa, they feels good when they can see something in their life they will later read in books. They don’t have much catching up to do when they enter school with already knowing the basics of reading. No longer is there pressure to learn to read from scratch. Or learning to pay attention during story time when he has already begun that process at home. - Empathy.
I know so much more about my world because of the books I read. I don’t travel much, but through books, I’m able to get a sense of the world and what others feel and experience. The same holds true for kids. Reading stories about other people’s experiences helps them understand the feelings of others. - A positive relationship between parent and child.
Reading aloud now helps build a positive relationship between the two of you. Your child will have a positive attitude towards reading and remember it as one of the ways you bonded.