THE ESSENTIAL
- Shared reading helps children build their imagination and develop their curiosity.
- When the first contact with the book is made at school, it is possible that reading becomes a task and not a pleasure for the child.
Many parents have a habit of reading bedtime stories to their children. This ritual encourages interactions between them and promotes the bond of attachment. According to a publication by The Conversationshared reading has other benefits as well.
Shared reading familiarizes children with the “language of books”
This routine, which is repeated every evening, allows children’s brains to prepare for reading earlier. According to Maryanne Wolf, professor of child development and cognitive neuroscience in the United States, processing certain words or phrases like “once upon a time”, which are rarely heard in ordinary conversations, helps to familiarize toddlers with the “language of books”. “Hearing the written language and feeling a feeling of love” would be “the best foundations of this long learning that no specialist in cognitive science or education can implement”, said the teacher.
Read stories to help them develop their language
Shared reading also promotes the development of children’s oral and written language. As a reminder, from 1 to 3 years old, a toddler says his first words then begins to do his first phases. Thus, reading stories to your child before this age helps to enrich his vocabulary and develop his comprehension skills.
“Because of greater exposure to the written word, the comprehension and technical skills in reading and spelling of children who read more improve with each year of education. (…) School results indicate that readers frequent are students who are more successful”, can we read in the results of a study published in the journal Psychological Bulletin.
Reading becomes a source of pleasure
According to studies published in the journal The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Introducing books to your child from an early age helps him develop his taste for reading. “The results suggest that reading skills, which vary from child to child, determine the number of books they choose to read, rather than the other way around,” said the Dutch scientists.
