Reading exercises the brain and teaches children more about the world that they live in. It allows them to develop the vital skills that are needed throughout school and can boost their academic performance in more ways than one. We have teamed up with an independent girls school in London to share more surprising benefits of reading for children.
It Gives a Chance to Bond with Your Child
Storytime gives you and your child time to bond. Time like this is precious and demonstrates your active interest in their education at the same time. This can help your child to be more passionate about their studies and boost their academic performance.
Strengthens the Attention Span
A recent study shows that humans now have an average attention span of 8 seconds, lower than that of a goldfish. Reading is a mentally stimulating activity that requires concentration to avoid missing vital parts of a plot and can help your child to challenge this.
Creative Thinking and Imagination
Books get the imagination fired up by leaving us on cliff-hangers at the end of every chapter. This can get your child to exercise their thinking skills like problem-solving and critical thinking as they draw their own interpretations.
Life Lessons
‘The moral of the story’ is a saying that you hear often which refers to the lesson that an author wants its readers to take away from a book. Books help children to understand important life lessons by allowing them to read about stories involving them as an outsider. Lessons can teach them about the importance of honesty in stories like ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’ or prepare children for life experiences yet to come like starting nursery school.
Improved Vocabulary
Reading can help your child to discover new words and build familiarity with them, helping them to enhance their speech, reading and writing skills. The context that they are used in can help your child to develop a richer understanding by allowing them to explore how and when they are used. In early childhood, vocabulary can help children when starting to read by making the possibilities of the words that they blend more apparent.
Increased Reading Fluency
Children that read regularly are able to read longer passages quicker and with more accuracy by developing a familiarity with new vocabulary. This can help to boost your child’s academic performance across their subjects as all subjects require reading and exams involve reading and analysing different texts.