Bedtime stories are an integral part of a young child’s life all over the world, in every culture. No matter what language you speak or where you live, or even if you don’t have access to books, bedtime stories have been practised since time immemorial. Wondrous World books have been developed specifically to help with reading development, as well as simply to provide gorgeous, personalised adventures that will become story time favourites.
Why story time is beneficial
Story time, whether it’s at bedtime, bath time, afternoon nap time or in the morning is incredibly important to a young child’s development – both for their reading ability, for vocabulary, for their imagination and education about the world around them.
It’s also a really important part of bonding with children, creating a beautiful relationship and regular time together when you forget about work, stress and everything else in your life and focus on having half an hour of quiet, creative, fun time with your child or grandchild.
Not only that, but bedtime stories help to create a good bedtime routine, which also assists in sleep, cognitive development and behaviour.
Whether children are old enough to read or not, just looking at pages and listening to words is a vital part of “emergent literacy skills” — important building blocks toward the day when they’ll read for themselves.
How story time helps reading development from the get-go
If a child has been read to a lot, even if they’re not reading themselves just yet, they still begin to understand a lot about reading:
- They know which way books are read, e.g. from front to back; left to right etc
- They know pictures should be right side up
- They recognise the different sounds of words
- They know there are some familiar and some unfamiliar words
- They know that stories have a beginning, a middle, and ending
- They understand that text is words written down
- They learn that letters in a specific order form a word and that there are spaces between words
Wondrous Ink tips to make the most out of story time:
- Find a quiet spot – in bed is best and make sure there are no distractions like TV!
- Let your children choose their stories
- Make it a daily routine – it helps settle your child and gives a nice reason to go to bed!
- Make reading stories fun – use different voices and props – just like they used to do on Jackanory!
- Repetition is good – particularly for little children and babies
- Point to the pictures and repeat the names or main words several times
- Make up your own stories – great for creativity for both you and your children and children engage
- Make up a story that’s all about them! Wait! We’ve done that for you!!
About us: Wondrous World is a unique storybook created from each letter of your child’s name. See for yourself here: www.wondrousink.com
Written and Published for Wondrous Ink on July 20 2016.