Grace Garden Preschool

According to Mem Fox, author of Reading Magic, "If parents understood the huge educational benefit and intense happiness brought about by reading aloud to their children, and if every parent—and every adult caring for a child—read aloud a minimum of three stories a day to the children in their lives, we could probably wipe out illiteracy within one generation." This is a pretty bold statement, but one that many Early Childhood professionals firmly believe in. Reading to a child can and should begin as soon after birth as possible, as it will help with brain development, speech skills, as well as simply bonding with the child, which will help in other developmental areas as well.

It may seem to some that infants won't benefit from being read aloud to, but many experts on the subject disagree. Most people don’t realize that when a child is born, only 25 percent of the brain in developed; the rest develops within the first year of life. This is an extremely crucial time in a child’s life where reading aloud and simply talking to the child will help tremendously with brain development along with his speaking skills.

In his book The Read-Aloud Handbook, Jim Trelease gives several examples to emphasis the belief that there is a literacy problem in the United States. One such example follows:

"Every workday afternoon a courier shows up at the door of the fifth largest insurance company in America, New York Life. There his is handed a satchel of insurance claims, which he drives to JFK Airport. The satchel is then loaded aboard an Aer Lingus jet and flown to Dublin, Ireland, where American insurance claims will be processed by another people in another county. Why? Because New York Life cannot find enough young people in the metropolitan area, between the ages of twenty and thirty, who know how to read, write, and think clearly and critically enough to process insurance claims. Ireland has them."

There is a simple solution to this problem, read aloud to your children every day, even when they are old enough to read to themselves.  Reading aloud should be fun, exciting and pleasurable for both the person reading and the child being read to, if it’s not, the child will not want to be read to and consequently not like to read later in life.

Most parents begin working with their children by teaching them their letters first, then they move onto words and then the stories. According to Mem Fox this is exactly opposite of the way it should be done. If a parent reads aloud to their child early and often then the letters and words will naturally come into the child’s world.

When reading to your children some points to remember are to read books that you enjoy yourself, to read age appropriate books to your child, and read books to yourself before reading them aloud wtih your child.  Using books that your child doesn’t understand can turn them off of books for good.  Have fun

One other very important aspect of reading aloud to children is to discuss what’s being read to them. This helps the child to not only learn to read the words on the page, but to understand what they are reading, or being read to. A child can learn the words and read them from a book, but if they don’t understand what they are reading, then they aren't really eading.  So, have books readily available around the house and take them to the library as often as possible. Make reading fun, and make sure to read often. If you make the time, you're sure to have an avid reader who is, most importantly, an intensely happy child.

Here's to many books in your future, 
Ms. Kym