If you do only one thing to unlock your child's potential, read aloud.
This simple, inexpensive activity leads to the huge benefits with minimal parental effort. For the price of a library card, you can have access to almost any book you want.
Why should you focus specially on reading to your child?
At the most fundamental level, reading to your child lets them know you want to spend time with them. This boosts self-esteem and the positive atmosphere created will help to develop a love of reading in your child. A favourite childhood memory of mine is my dad reading to me at bedtime (while he surreptiously tried to skip pages!).
When children see their parents reading, this becomes part of their idea of ‘what adults do'. This goes a long way towards your child becoming a life-long reader, which is the ultimate goal of all reading instruction.
Reading aloud has a significant positive impact on developing literacy skills: e.g. reading is a skill that develops over time – the more you read, the better you get at it; running your finger under the words while your child watches improves word reading skills; good literature helps the child to develop a memory bank on which they can draw for their own writing.
Here comes the science bit – a study by Hart & Risely in 1995 highlighted the vast differences in both the quantity and quality of words heard by children, depending on their economic circumstances. They reported that children of professional parents hear 32-million more words by age four than children from disadvantaged backgrounds. The study also illustrated the differences in the variety of words heard by the different groups of children. These differences in the quantity and quality of words heard lead to significant differences in children's vocabulary at age three and later language ability. The good news is that reading aloud can be used to help ensure your children ‘meet the quota'. In addition, the vocabulary in a book is likely to be more diverse than the spoken vocabulary of most people.
Reading aloud allows the child to be be exposed to language that is beyond their current reading ability, improving vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure and general knowledge. Vocabulary is closely related to academic success and it is a key area on IQ tests. Therefore, reading aloud can boost your child's IQ.
I highly recommend “The Read Aloud Handbook” by Jim Trelease. In this book, the author synthesises the research on why you should read aloud, along with some dos and don'ts. See http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/30-read-aloud-DOs.pdf for some read-aloud tips.
Ideally, children will have 1000 hours of being read to under their belt by the time they start school. If your child is already in school, don't worry, just start today. (The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago – the second best time is now.)
I recently joined an online challenge to read 1000 books to my toddler in a year. Within a fortnight of beginning, I noticed a HUGE improvement in both her language skills and her interest in learning to read. And best of all, she really loves this special time.
Really fabulous Kit, and so clever, it is so true.. makes total sense!! xx
Thanks Lou. Dad is trying to deny the skipping pages – he asked if I was familiar with the ‘false memory’ theory.
Great article Catherine, well done. Sophie and Ruben are very lucky. Sometimes when I am speaking with children in my english classes, I don’t worry if they can’t understand everything as I know they are getting familiar with the sound of the language and am opening up new vocabulary for the future.
Thanks Morgan 🙂 And it sounds like you’re taking an excellent approach with your students – there needs to be a balance between repitition of what they already know and exposure to vocab beyond their current capabilities. Sophie frequenly uses words she has only heard in books – my favourite was the first time she used the word “disgusting”, which she had lifted from one of the Tony Ross books. I don’t think Paul was too happy though, as she was using it to reject the meal he had just presented to her!
Brilliant, Cath, and just reading together can be relaxing, positive and fun (and perfectly suited to my sedentary sensibilities…)
Brilliant, Cath. Reading together can be relaxing, positive and fun (and suited to my sedentary sensibilities..)
mdoo1 – I read a book recently where the author says that one of the positives of reading to her toddler was that she got to lie down!
well done Catherine, Great to see research of this nature. I think I told you before about a little book of rhymes I used to read to Sadhbh every night from when she was a few days old, then I misplaced it after a few months. When she began talking, one day I heard her say one of the rhymes, I genuinely don’t think she heard it anywhere else. Children are sponges and its up to us to ensure they get the chance. Keep up the good work – you must let me know what Sofie thought of War and Peace! (I’m kinda joking!!!)
She’s wading through Ulysses at the moment
I had forgotten that about Sadhbh – it’s pretty astonishing to think about her brain taking that in, waiting for the opportunity to show it.
Love the art.
There must be a story there?
It’s from Room on the Broom, written by Julia Donaldson & illustrated by Alex Sheffler. I love their books!
It came at the right time for me! The more arguments I have for reading aloud, the more I do it. Feel free to write about whatever you think you should. Even for the most common subjects there are so many views and approaches and things to discover. Every parent has his own sources and, most of all his own experience 😉
Thanks Andrea. To be honest, it’s a reminder for me to read more. Sometimes the simplest things are the most effective.