Sarah from Little Story Shapers explores the importance of reading with us this month.
Reading is something that I have always enjoyed as an adult. It’s something I enjoyed as a child, and it’s something that I now love doing with my children. This passion has gone on to inspire my business and underpins everything we do at Little Story Shapers. There really is nothing better than story time with your child.
The Importance of Reading
By giving stories an extra dimension, making the words jump out of the page, exploring it with all our senses and allowing our little ones to physically act out the story or have the world created around them, we nurture a love of books.
A love books is so crucial because this is the first step to them learning to read themselves. If our little one’s love books, they’ll want to learn to read, they’ll have that desire, and that passion for reading. If you’ve got a child that isn’t interested in books and reading, they’re less likely to want to pick up a book and start to learn to read themselves. So, you’ve got a challenge from the beginning. Whereas if they love books, they’re going to be curious as to what the words say. From a very young age, children can learn stories off by heart. They don’t actually read but they get the sense that they’re reading and a feeling of achievement which inspires them to learn more. We can then build on that with their phonological awareness, which we do in my older classes, and start introducing those letters and early reading skills.
The Benefits of Reading
With a background in primary school teaching, I’ve seen first-hand the impact and importance of reading and talking to your child has when they first start school. When children have been exposed to more vocabulary they have a deeper understanding of language.
The more words that children know, the easier they are going to be able to communicate their wants, needs, desires, knowledge and their ideas. Strong language skills under pin so many elements of learning. It also helps regulate their emotions, because they’ve got those skills to be able to talk about how they’re feeling. When social skills are improved they can communicate with their peers and make friends. It also improves their critical thinking skills and enhances their creativity.
Reading really opens up the rest of the curriculum.
When our children can read, they can then access the whole curriculum. You may think well how does reading link to Maths? Because when it gets to the stage where they have got to read worded maths questions they need that understanding to read the question first. If they can’t read the question and if they haven’t got that understanding of what the words mean, then they can’t do the actual maths sum. The same applies for subjects like History and Geography. Research becomes a big part of these subjects where they need to be able to read information, find out knowledge to enhance their understanding of the subject. Even subject like Cookery require children to read recipes.
So reading really does open up the whole curriculum. If we are exposing our little ones from a young age, we allow them to succeed and propel their learning forward.
Get started!
Check out these top tips for how to read to your newborn so you can start reading straight away:
- Act out parts of the story to allow the words to come alive and jump out of the page.
- Read books that appeal to your child’s interests or a milestone they are working on to help make it relatable.
- Use books with flaps, feely sections, buttons or interactive elements to make books more engaging.
- Use funny voices to give your little one a chuckle!
- Make up stories so that you are in charge of the content and can tailor it to your child.
At Little Story Shapers, we nurture a love of books. We start your little ones reading journey early through our interactive, sensory storytelling and drama activities.
Each week we bring a new story book to life and our little ones take part in an immersive, interactive journey into the make-believe worlds of stories using sensory props, songs, sign language and heaps of imagination.
Classes are designed to support your child’s developmental milestones. It focuses on the importance of reading, builds their communication skills and provides you with the opportunity to bond together.
Our classes are warm and welcoming allowing you as the parent to get to know other Mums and build a support network.
Little Story Shapers have classes across Essex in Braintree, Witham and Chelmsford. Find out more about the classes here or follow Little Story Shapers on Instagram or Facebook.
Read more blogs on how to improve your little ones sleep here.
