Reading To Your Child

Is reading to your child really worth all the hype? Yes, it absolutely is! Reading is the next best thing you can give your child after healthy food and a comfortable life.

Reading to your child has numerous benefits. It aids in developing vocabulary and language, listening skills, concentration, empathy and imagination. Alright, now that we have seen the benefits of reading to our children, let's see how we can actually do it.

It is never too early and never too late to start reading to your child. You can start when they are in the womb or when they are a few months old or when they are much older - any time is fine. Sooner the better. I started when my child was 3 months old. You will be surprised how they slowly start responding to a certain book even at that age.

Let your child see you reading. Children more often than not imitate you. If they see you reading, they are likely to develop a liking for books too.

Here are some ways that might help you raise a reader.

1. Get age appropriate books. There are a variety of books available, like picture books, cloth books, texture books, board books and so on. Cloth books are appropriate for infants as they can be washed. Until they turn one, board books are safer because they are sturdy. Toddlers on the other hand enjoy pop-up and lift-the-flap books a lot more.

2. Never bribe them to read. 'If you read this book, I will give you an ice-cream' - stop! Children - why, even adults for that matter - tend to dislike anything they are forced to do. Remember, your goal is for them to reach out to books themselves and develop the habit of reading.

3. Show interest by using funny voices and gestures when you are reading a book to your child. If you use a monotonous tone and just read out the text - well, your child is bound to get bored. Make it dramatic, use a lot of gestures, giggle, flap your arms - just have some fun.

4. Relate what you have read to what's around you. Next time you go for a walk, show your child a bird that's chirping and tell them how it looks like the bird in that book you read yesterday. Your child is likely to go back to that particular book after the walk and look at the picture again.

5. Be ready for a storm of questions. Reading happens to be a great exercise for their brains. They learn a lot of things from books, a lot of new words, many new animals they have never seen, a whole lot of new concepts. So naturally they will have a lot of questions. It is okay if you do not know the answer for everything. Tell them you will get back to them and find the answer. Believe me, if you go through my browser search history, you will see crazy stuff like 'what do bats eat' and 'does an emu make a sound'.

6. Do not hesitate to make up your own stories. Nobody is writing an exam on that book. So feel free to make up a different story based on the pictures in the book. There are times when my child asks me to read a book with a story that is slightly more complicated for his age. I just spin a different story then. For example when he was one year old, his favourite book was 'Rabbit and Tortoise', but he was very small to understand the concept of a race. So, it became a story where the rabbit and the tortoise were running to get some ice cream!

7. You also need not to stick to the language of the book. Feel free to use your native language while reading an English book. As I said before, who is writing an exam on it?

8. Make it an interactive experience. Ask him to point at some picture in the book. Tell him to jump like a frog or roar like a lion - just like how the frog/lion does in the book. Talk about it, not just during the reading session, but also later.

9. Always keep books accessible to your child. You do not have to display every book all the time. Rotating books once a week is a very popular method among parents. I keep about 10 books out and rotate them every week. If you have access to a library, nothing like taking a trip to the library with your child.

Reading, is not just for the sake of reading. It is for a lot more than just building language skills and brain development. It builds a special bond between you and your child. A special bond between your child and books.

It enriches your child's vocabulary, nourishes his imagination and feeds his curiosity. They will love books. They just need a little help from you to fall in love first.