Importance of Reading in Early Years

Do you know that children develop more rapidly during the first 6 years of their lives than at any other time?

Yes, It’s true. That’s why this crucial period is known as ‘the foundation years.

If you nurture certain skills during these first 6 years, you create a solid foundation from which your child can build on for the rest of their life.

Literacy is one of those skills that parents can nurture in those early years. Why literacy? Because reading and writing are the fundamentals of all formal education, not to mention that they crop up multiple times every single day. From reading road signs and writing shopping lists to learning a new language, literacy is a skill that is vital for everyone.

Reasons why reading is important for young children

1. Reading helps to develop a young child’s brain

Vital connections in the brain are made very early in life. At birth, a healthy baby is born with approximately 200 billion active brain cells or neurons. Parent’s talking, singing and reading to their children at a young age stimulates these brain cells and each time it strengthens them, and they form connections with even more brain cells which store additional information. Stimulating your young child’s brain cells through these early experiences form the basis of all future learning and intellectual ability. At a younger age, learning is faster than it will be as the child grows older. When a child is taught to read, the process of learning has a profound influence on the entire functioning and development of the brain. You can play a critical early role by inculcating not only reading skills and ability but more importantly, instilling a lifelong love of learning and reading and it will also help them to become better listeners, readers, and communicators.

2. Reading fosters a love for learning

Talking about that lifelong love for learning, that is why reading is important at such an early age. When children learn to read joyfully at an early age, with a loving parent or caregiver, they have greater general knowledge, a wider range of vocabulary, they are more fluent readers, they have good attention spans and better concentration. As well as stronger oral and literacy skills, proficiency in reading also allows young children to understand more, to learn more, and to become competent researchers. They grow in self-confidence and independence and reading promotes greater maturity, increases discipline, and lays the basis for moral literacy. It sparks curiosity about people, places and things and satisfies the child’s curiosity by providing explanations of how things work.

3. Reading has many psychological benefits for young children

Early reading ignites creativity, sparks curiosity, and stimulates the imagination in young children. Often, this leads to role-play as children grow which helps to develop other skills such as empathy, problem-solving, and morality. The simple act of taking time out of the day to read to your baby or sit down with your child helps to spend quality time with the child and the bond between the parent and child grows multi folds.

4. Reading helps boost a young child’s self-confidence

If you read with your children early on and help them to learn at their own pace in a fun setting, you can foster a love of reading and help them to become competent and confident and this habit continues forever.

5. Reading helps young children become better writers and communicators

Reading not only benefits children in expanding their vocabulary and knowledge but it develops so many other skills too. Early reading gives more exposure and more exposure leads to better expression, vocabulary, grammar, oral communication and writing becomes natural outcome.

Make reading together a part of your daily routine

Now you know why reading is important and all the benefits that it offers, start to make the time to read a little with your children every day. This will develop a great bonding in between you and your children. Soon you’ll find that cuddling up in bed reading stories is your favourite part of the day and it will create great memories for you and your children too!

Often the question that pops up is that Ok, which book to start with? Here, few good book’s names are mentioned that are good to start with. These books really helped my children to create the love for reading in the very early stage and the result is that my twin boys love reading very much. They start their day with a book and they authored a book “What Shall We Tell” when they were 4 years. They read multi-lingual books and always very curious to learn new languages.\

Please refer these books: