Reading helps enhance the knowledge that aids in difficult life choices and widens our imagination skills. Books are helpful for children to enrich their knowledge and understanding of things. Recent studies have proved that reading with children at home from an early age is strongly associated with the activation of the brain in areas attached to imaginary visuals and understanding of the meaning of language.
The five early reading skills are phenomic knowledge, vocabulary, phonics, reading comprehension, and fluency in oral reading. These are developed better in those children whose parents read books to them.
Benefits of book reading
Here are a few benefits of book reading for children;
Cognition development
Cognition is a mental action of gaining knowledge and understanding through thought, senses, and experiences. It leads to the unfolding of thinking ability and learning. Also, it helps construct the thought process, make children remember things, solve problems, and make decisions. The process works from childhood to adolescence to adulthood. Reading aloud to children facilitates them with background knowledge of what they see, hear, and read in their young world. In addition, it makes them eligible to know and understand their surroundings and helps them understand life at a young age.
Enhanced language skills
Reading to children facilitates them to have a better social life due to improved vocabulary, socializing, and talking ability. Literacy and communication skills are common among those children whose parents make them read aloud stories. Start reading to them in infancy, and they will have better social skills as they grow up. Books introduce many words to the child, enhancing their motor skills and vocabulary.
Academic success
Reading books benefits kids’ academic lives by allowing them to communicate with teachers and fellows and enhance their knowledge and understanding. Book reading enhances learning or reading skills and improves listening abilities. Such children see the world through different perspectives. Such children learn things quickly in their formal education period, have better academic grades, and learn new things by asking more from teachers.
Better imagination
Reading should be considered an imaginative activity as it opens doors to the imagination. In addition, this enhances creativity by improving their inventiveness skills.
Concentration and discipline
As a result of more screen time, children have short attention spans and are less disciplined; however, parents can improve their concentration and discipline by replacing screen time with reading books. There must be regular book reading sessions to discipline them and enhance their mental capabilities.
Emotional and social development
Empathy is a strong emotion that should be built in every child to make them a good human being. Parents should make their kids read empathetic stories to enhance their social and emotional skills.
Exploring other worlds
Book reading helps children explore other worlds by showing different cultures, beliefs, and norms of other countries and religions. Children become more open-minded and know more about other cultures, races, and ideas.
Conclusion
Reading books to children and making them read themselves helps them develop better cognition and social skills. Books enhance learning abilities, better academic performance, writing skills, and emotional well-being. In addition, reading widens the imagination, opens the door to other worlds, provides knowledge about other cultures and religions, and makes children able to deal with different situations positively. This also enhances parent-child relations and good communication skills in children.