Reading with Your Child

Most of us know the research about how important it is to read with children every day. And most of us have every intention of doing that. However, day to day life, with all of its tasks and distractions can get in the way of realizing our best intentions. Therefore, purposefully scheduling time to read with your child is one of the most valuable things you can do as a parent.

There are many reasons why reading with your child is so valuable, for example:

• It’s a time for your child to have your undivided attention and closeness, which they want more than anything.
• It’s a way to encourage the joy of reading. Children who love to read not only do better in school, but also become lifelong learners.
• It helps develop your child’s language and literacy skills.

Reading with your child helps develop language and literacy skills, particularly vocabulary development, or the amount of words a child knows and understands in oral language. A large oral vocabulary is the foundation of ongoing language and literacy development.

Reading books aloud also exposes your child to all kinds of words, including spicy words. Spicy words are new, powerful, rich, and increasingly complex words.

Here are tips to promote vocabulary development while reading with your child, at every age:

Happy reading!