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What Are the Benefits of Reading to Your Child?
The first book Lauri Arrington read to her daughter Savanna was “And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street” by Dr. Seuss. Now, a mother reading anything from the iconic Dr. Seuss to her toddler daughter is so common, it happens on days ending in ‘y.’ It’s not exactly needle-moving news.
This, however, wasn’t your usual mother-daughter reading session. The two weren’t in the same room. They weren’t in the same city. And Savanna was hearing her mother’s voice not in person, but on tape.
Lauri Arrington was “reading” to her daughter from a Texas prison. Through the Women’s Storybook Project, a Texas nonprofit, incarcerated women select a book and read it into a tape recorder. The tapes and books are mailed to the child, who can hear their mother’s voice and feel a connection—even a tenuous one separated by walls and bars.
Arrington’s story, which she chronicled in a blog for the New York Times, illustrates more than the lengths incarcerated parents with go to maintain a connection with their children. It illustrates the importance of parents reading to their children.
The benefits of reading to your child are well-chronicled and long-lasting: improved bonding, boosted brain development, an increase in creativity, better listening skills, increased attention span, exposure to important life lessons and improved social and emotional development.
But there’s an added benefit that starts from the moment you pick up a book and read it to your infant. According to the Child Mind Institute, simply exposing your child to words is the single greatest way to build the language pathways in their brain. When you read to your child at a young age, you expose them to vocabulary they wouldn’t otherwise hear.
“Kids who hear more vocabulary words are going to be better prepared to see those words in print when they enter school,”
Books take the language of the home and expand it, giving children new ways of using language. They hear different words and, by doing so, expand their vocabulary.
How much? Research from the Ohio State College of Education and Human Ecology showed that parents who read one book a day to their child will expose them to about 290,000 more words by the time they enter kindergarten than those whose parents or caregivers don’t read to them. Read five books a day to your child and you give them a 1.4 million-word head start on their fellow kindergartners who aren’t read to.
“Kids who hear more vocabulary words are going to be better prepared to see those words in print when they enter school,” said Vanderbilt Associate Professor of Special Education Jessica Logan, the lead author of the study, conducted when she was an assistant professor of educational studies at The Ohio State University.
It comes back to the diversity of language. When you read a book about polar bears, whales, trains, states or countries or even famous people from history, you’re using words not often spoken around the house. That builds not only a child’s vocabulary, but background knowledge that serves them well when they enter school. They have an easier time learning new topics because of their wide exposure to a variety of subjects.
These benefits are universal. But how can parents make reading engaging and fun for children with speech challenges?
Start early. Read anything, even a newspaper or magazine. The important element at this point isn’t the content, it’s the sound of your voice. Have fun with this by changing your voice for different characters, showing emotion and “acting” out the story.
Start with books that fit into categories, such as zoo animals, things that go (cars, trains, planes, buses, etc.). That keeps things simple, allowing children with speech delay to follow along easier. Ask questions about the objects in the story that help tell the story: “Where does the shark live?” “Yes, the ocean. The shark lives in the ocean.”
Choose books with a lot of action. Ask your child to point to familiar objects like a cat or a cow and ask them to make the sound that creature makes. As they get older, ask them what sound “bird” starts with.
Read the same story over and over. Repetition builds not only comfort and familiarity in toddlers, but helps them master difficult language skills.
Ask questions about the story. “What is the rabbit doing?” “What color is the dog?” As your child gets older, ask more difficult questions, like “Where do you think the fire engine is going?” or “What are the whales saying to each other?”
The RiteCare Childhood Language Center has the resources and knowledge to help your child with speech challenges fall in love with books, while introducing them to the fascinating people, places and things found inside.
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