The Importance of Reading to Children

Why Reading is Important for Young Children

The building blocks of speech and language are set very early in a child's life, so it is important to take advantage of the periods of early child development to support their growing communication skills.

Reading aloud to children is one of the greatest opportunities to expose little ones to lots of different sounds, language, and vocabulary, which is particularly important for increasing their background knowledge across a range of topics.

Each book read together nurtures the development of a child’s brain. By reading with your child from a young age, you are encouraging language growth, early literacy skills, cognitive development, and family bonding.

Ideally, parents and carers should aim to read at least five books or short stories each day to their child.

Reading aloud also exposes children to repetitive language, slows the rate of speech for easier listening, and exaggerates features such as rhythm and intonation – which is key for children who are deaf or hard of hearing.

The Million Word Gap

When books are not read with children at home, there can be significant impacts on a child’s language skills.

Research shows that there is a million word gap between families who expose children to regular reading at home compared to those who do not.

This means that children who do not read books from an early age are potentially missing out on key language development opportunities by being exposed to significantly fewer words.

Reading is incredibly valuable for a child’s development.

Songs for Language Development

Singing songs and rhymes is very important for a child's development, especially their language and speech development. As a bonus, your child will probably have fun too! Parents are encouraged to sing songs with their child and other children who may also be present, as this may encourage other parents to join in as well. Singing songs with children is also helpful in working on their attention span and developing various emotions that may be conveyed through the song.

The rising and falling intonation of singing also slows the rate of speech - which is beneficial for children who are deaf or hard of hearing. Singing highlights different rhythms and phrasing which supports listening skills.

Often, young children learn the words to their favourite songs and rhymes, and this supports children in learning more words.

Storytime at Home

Your child might also enjoy hearing made-up stories or stories that involve your family. Hearing parents tell stories will help children in telling their own stories later down the line.

Listening to new words and the structure of how stories are told is really beneficial for a child to start telling stories about their own lives.

What are the Main Benefits of Reading with Children?

There are many benefits to reading with children. Reading supports:

Early literacy skills
Independent reading skills
Critical thinking skills and problem-solving
Listening skills
Vocabulary skills
Language acquisition
Cognitive development
A child’s imagination
Child-parent bonding and social development

Importantly, reading aloud with babies and young children promotes brain development including helping to create numerous brain connections.

Reading in the early years also helps to cultivate a child’s life-long love of reading. This is important as reading is the key to life-long learning, especially in the later years of school, assisting in a child’s education.

Which Types of Books Should You Read With Babies and Early-Age Children?

When picking books to read with babies and young children, look for books that are age-appropriate, visually appealing, and entertaining. Books with bright pictures, large print, and rhyming words are excellent choices when picking a children's book.

For babies and young children, simple picture books featuring objects and animals your child can identify are best.

It’s helpful to have a varied supply of books on hand, whether that’s your collection or by joining a local library to borrow books. Keep an eye out for hard-paged books which will survive the rough-and-tumble of small children, and can be read together many times over.

You might find that young children gravitate towards their favourite book to read again and again. This shows that they are enjoying the story. It is important to note that often children learn best through repetition. The familiarity that reading the same story brings supports children's language acquisition. Parents can further develop their child's development by focusing on a different feature during each reading.

What books should older children read?

For older children, books that feature characters who also have hearing loss can encourage inclusivity and normalise wearing hearing technology.

Books featuring hearing loss or hearing devices include:

Freddie and the Fairy, Julia Donaldson
The Cochlear Kids: Liam the Superhero, Heidi Dredge
Bill and Hug: A Dragon’s Tale, Julianne Schmid
Goat Goes to Playgroup, Julia Donaldson
Dachy’s Deaf, Jack Hughes
Our Sister Lotte and her Special Ears, Kelsey Browning
Chelsea’s New Ear, Simone Cheadle
Chelsea and her Little Ear Make a New Friend, Simone Cheadle
Now Hear this: Harper Soars with her Magic Ears, Valli and Harper Gideons

Older children can be encouraged to read aloud to support them in reading aloud fluently, including all of the individual sounds of each word.

Tips on how to read with your child

Although a very young child may not be able to understand or concentrate on the full story, you can try talking about what’s happening in the pictures, which is relevant to the child’s developmental stage and interests. At this stage, you can expose children to new vocabulary by describing and pointing out the exciting things within the pictures, rather than the story itself. This also creates opportunities to reinforce the child’s learning elsewhere which supports language development – such as seeing a flower in a book, then when playing in the backyard, pointing out the flowers. This assists with creating connections and linking words to real-world objects.

You can also read aloud and point out interesting or new words in the books to help your child learn new vocabulary.

Asking questions about the pictures on the page can be another way to expand on the language learning opportunities during story times. Just remember, for every question you ask, offer five comments to optimise the amount of new words kids hear during book reading aloud.

The key is to start young as children learn to enjoy the sounds of different words as you read aloud, even before they can read the printed text.

Building book reading into your routine

It can be tricky to stay consistent with story time but building books into your daily routine can help children enjoy the benefits of reading. This can also be a lovely way to spend time together in the early years. Reading aloud with your child at a regularly scheduled time signals to young readers that reading is valuable and fun.

You can take books out with you when you leave the house to enjoy anywhere. School pickup, time at the park, bedtime, and bath time could all be opportunities to read a book together.

How can teachers encourage reading in young children

Teachers can also encourage reading stories with young readers to support children's development of language skills both in the education environment and at home. Teachers can do this by: