Making sure you take the time to have read-aloud storytime with your child every day will provide so many benefits for your child! Reading to toddlers and even babies is very good for their development.
Many of the benefits that your children will reap from storytime may not be obvious at the moment, but the long-term benefits can be really significant.
Importance of Reading Aloud To Your Kids
Supports Cognitive Development
Cognitive development is building the ability to think and understand. It refers to how someone perceives and thinks about their world through information processing, intelligence, reasoning, language development, attention span, and memory.
When you begin reading aloud to your child, it provides them with background knowledge on their young world, which helps them make sense of what they see, hear, and read.
Reading every day to young children, starting in infancy, can help with language development, communication skills, social skills, and literacy skills. This is because reading to your children in their earliest months stimulates the part of the brain that allows them to understand the meaning of language and helps build key language, literacy, and social skills.
Increased Concentration and Discipline
Introducing regular reading time into your child’s schedule can increase your child’s discipline and concentration.
Very young children rarely sit still for long, and it’s often difficult to get them to focus. But when you introduce regular reading time to your children, you may start to observe a change in behavior. Toddlers may initially squirm and become distracted or restless during storytime, but eventually, they’ll learn to sit still and pay attention for the duration of the book.
According to EarlyMoments.com, regular storytime with your child can help them develop “a stronger self-discipline, longer attention span, and better memory retention, all of which will serve your child well when she enters school.”
Improved imagination and creativity
Young children are naturally big dreamers and love to use their imaginations.
Reading aloud to your child helps them use their imaginations to explore people, places, times, and events beyond their normal life experiences. Reading opens up a whole new world of imaginative creativity for your child.
By widening your child’s imagination, they are more likely to dream bigger and act creatively which can benefit them in their school, work, and life in the future.