Dr. Jorja Scott, School Counselor
Why Read To Your Child Every Night?
The day is filled with duties and responsibilities to your children. You wake them up, feed them, dress them, take them to the bus or school, go to work to support them, pick them up, feed them again, help them with homework, take them to and from ball practice, and then get them ready for bed. Sometimes it can be hard to even find time for yourself, so why should to add reading to your child every night onto your already long list of things to do? Studies show that reading to a child every night has countless benefits. Here are just ten of them.
- It increases child language and literacy outcomes.
- It increases their vocabulary size and exposes them to new vocabulary.
- It helps to develop reading, decoding, and comprehension skills.
- It has been shown to motivate reading for enjoyment later in life.
- When you read to a child with enthusiasm, different voices, or different expressions, you are increasing your child’s emotional awareness.
- Reading about different people or a different culture helps to increase and develop empathy.
- Reading to a child early on in life can help teach and promote concentration and focus skills.
- Routinely reading to a child before bed can help calm and relax, leaning to better sleep.
- Reading aloud to children has been shown to increase their creativity and imagination.
- Most importantly, reading to your child helps them to bond with you. This special love and attention will have a meaningful positive impact on their relationship with you and others.
Now that we know why reading aloud to a child is important, you may wonder where you can get books to read to your children. The biggest resource available to parents for find books is your local library. All Wyoming county libraries have a children’s book section. Also, the Oceana Public Library has a story hour every week on Wednesdays at noon. The West Virginia library system also has a library e-book system that allows you to access children’s books from you own home. You need a library card to access this. Another free resource for infants and toddlers in our area is Dolly Patron’s Imagination Library. This free program mails free books to any family with a child aged from birth until entering school. A new age appropriate book is sent each month to the child.
Facts sourced from:
Brooks, A. (2018). The Benefits of Reading to Children: From Prenatal to Adolescence. Retrieved November 13, 2018, from https://www.rasmussen.edu/degrees/education/blog/benefits-of-reading-to-children/
Demir-Lira, Ö. E., Applebaum, L. R., Goldin-Meadow, S., & Levine, S. C. (2018). Parents' early book reading to children: Relation to children's later language and literacy outcomes controlling for other parent language input. Developmental Science, e12764. doi:10.1111/desc.12764