Reading to Children

The Importance Of Reading To Children, How To Read Aloud, The Best Read Aloud Books

As parents, many of us know this but we may not be sure exactly why it's so important that we read to our kids when they're small.

So what exactly are the benefits of reading aloud to your child?

In fact, the learning-to-read process starts at birth and reading aloud plays a vital role because it helps develop three essential pre-reading skills.

Reading to children stimulates and develops three things that are critical for learning to read:

• phonological awareness
• wide background knowledge
• a rich and wide vocabulary

These three skills are actually the foundations for learning to read.

If you aren’t familiar with these skills or if you’re wondering how on earth you’re supposed to teach them to your child, please don’t worry! Knowing about them and understanding how they develop is interesting but not really that important.

The important thing to know is that if you start reading to your child when he's a baby and read every day and in the right way will help him develop these skills naturally and easily.

You won’t need to formally ‘teach’ anything and your child won’t be aware that listening to you read stories and nursery rhymes is helping his brain to develop. He’ll just think he’s having fun with you!

Parents and teachers have known for a long time that reading to children is important but there is now a great deal of research about the long-term benefits.

We now know that children who are read to –

• often need little in the way of formal teaching when it comes to reading
• learn to read easily and naturally, sometimes before they start school
• go on to become capable, confident readers and to enjoy reading
• do better at school in all subjects and therefore tend to enjoy school

Children who start school with years of happy reading aloud experiences under their belts grow into confident learners in all subject areas simply because they are in the best possible position to get the most out of school.

Their strong language and listening skills and wide general knowledge help them to understand more of what the teacher says and give them the ability to confidently take part in class discussions.

Amazing stuff, this reading to children!

In fact, children’s author and literacy expert Mem Fox speaks and writes about the magic of reading aloud and has even written a book called Reading Magic.

American writer Jim Trelease also speaks about the huge benefits of reading aloud and describes, in The Read-Aloud Handbook, the almost magical ability it has to transform the lives of disadvantaged children.

So reading to babies and young children is important but where do you start?

Reading aloud comes naturally to some people but if you haven't done it before it can feel a bit weird or even embarrassing.

It's something we usually don't have any experience with until we have our own children so it can be hard to know how to begin.

• when to begin


• tips for reading aloud


• how to read aloud


• the best books to read


• reading to older kids


• reading to teens