Reading to your baby is just as important as any other activity you do with your child. It’s never too early to begin reading as the benefits are tremendous. Reading teaches a baby about communication, builds listening, memory, and vocabulary skills, and gives babies information about the world around them. Concepts such as letters, colours, and shapes are learned by the turn of a page.
Believe it or not, by the time babies reach their first birthday, they would have learned all the sounds needed to speak their native language. The more stories you read aloud, the more words your child would be exposed to and the better he or she will be able to talk. Hearing words helps to build a rich network of words in a baby’s brain. Children whose parents frequently talk or read to them know more words by age 2 than those who have not been read to. Kids who are read to during their early years are also more likely to learn to read at the right time.
Here are 5 key benefits of reading to your baby:
- Promotes an early interest in reading
- Promotes communication skills
- Boosts imagination
- Enhances pre-reading skills
- Enhances thinking skills
When you read, your child hears you using many different emotions and expressive sounds which fosters social and emotional development. Reading also encourages your baby to look, point, touch and answer questions – all of which promote social development and thinking skills. Your baby improves language skills by imitating sounds, recognizing pictures and learning words.
The most important reason to read aloud is that it makes a connection between the things your baby loves the most, your voice and closeness to you. Spending time reading to your baby shows that reading is a skill worth learning and if infants and children are read to often, with joy, excitement and closeness, they begin to associate books with happiness and budding readers are created.
So Mama’s and Papa’s…let’s not replace your lap!
