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| The importance of storytime
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Why children benefit from reading with parents
Bedtime stories are an integral part of a young child's life all over the world. No matter what language you speak or where you live, or even if you have access to books, bedtime stories have been practiced since time immemorial.
Story time, whether it's at bedtime, bath time, afternoon nap time or in the morning is incredibly important to a young child's development - both for their reading ability, for vocabulary, for their imagination and education about the world around them.
It's also a really important part of bonding with children, creating a beautiful relationship and daily time together when you forget about work, stress and everything else in your life and focus on having half an hour of quiet, creative, fun time with your child.
Not only that but bedtime stories help to create a good bedtime routine, which also assists in sleep, cognitive development and behaviour.
Whether children are old enough to read or not, just looking at pages and listening to words is a vital part of "emergent literacy skills" - important building blocks toward the day when they'll read for themselves.
If a child has been read to a lot, even if they're not reading themselves just yet, they still begin to understand a lot about reading:
- They know books are read from front to back and that they read from left to right (except in China, obviously!)
- They know pictures should be right side up
- They recognise the different sounds of words
- They know there are some familiar and some unfamiliar words
- They know that stories have a beginning, a middle, and ending
- They understand that text is words written down
- They learn that letters in a specific order form a word and that there are spaces between words
Let's Read, a national, evidence-based early literacy initiative that promotes reading with children from birth to five years. Developed by the Centre for Community Child Health at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute and The Royal Children's Hospital it works with communities across Australia to promote early reading and literacy. Let's Read has some great Tips Sheets to help you read with your baby, toddler or older child. You can download them here.
- Find a quiet spot – in bed is best and make sure there are no distractions like TV
- Let your children choose their stories
- Try to make it a daily routine, which helps settle your child and a nice reason to go to bed!
- Make reading stories fun - Use different voices and props – just like they used to do on Jackanory!
- Repetition is good – particularly for little children and babies. Point to the pictures and repeat the names or main words several times
- Make up your own stories – great for creativity for both you and your children
For some tips on reading to kids, you can't go past the all time classic story time performance by Rik Mayall on Jackanory, reading George's Marvellous Medicine! Click here to view.
A great way to get your toddler interested in reading books is, of course, to make the stories all about them! This is a brilliant way to really get your child enthusiastic and involved in the story.
Wondrous Ink's personalised children's book "Wondrous World" does exactly that, using each letter of the child's name to reveal their own personality and characteristics and why they are so special and unique in the world.
The inspiring and heart-warming children's story is the creation of husband and wife team, Michael and Angelica Brittain. The books are hand-drawn by talented Spanish psychologist turned illustrator, Andrea Sanz and the stories are written by children's writer and editor, Sarah Khan.
During the story children help a host of colourful characters in different ways, discovering something new about themselves with each interaction, until at the end they realise those same qualities actually spell out their very own name.
Get yours at a discount
Wondrous Ink is offering CareforKids.com.au parents 15% discount on any books. Simply order your book from the Wondrous Ink website - www.wondrousink.com - and the put the code C4K2015 at checkout to redeem your discount for the month of June.
Terms & Conditions
RRP AU$29.99. Discount terms for books ordered online from June 1 2015 to 11.59PM AEST, June 30 2015.
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