Books are essential to helping your child grow and build their language skills. They can also teach them ways to deal with frustration, ways to be creative, and can help them learn sentence and grammar structure. Here are some of the amazing ways books can help your child’s development:
Build their Interests
Children learn through interaction with preferred topics and areas of interest. When children are young, we play with them to help them build their language skills. However, as they get older, they are able to learn in different ways. One way is through interaction with books and stories about interesting topics. If your child is interested in a particular topic, encourage them through books and build vocabulary at the same time. Childrens’ books are available on virtually any topic your child might want to explore.
Grammar and Vocabulary
Books can teach children important grammar and vocabulary skills early on. Grammar and vocabulary words are typically learned together. Therefore, offering your child a book about a preferred topic that offers grammatically correct sentences, will help them build their vocabulary skills while learning and playing with something that they enjoy! Consider “reading” wordless books with your child. You can take turns telling the story, practicing and learning new vocabulary and sentence structure. You can even change the story a bit each time you tell it.
Help Build Pragmatic and Social Skills
Social skills play a crucial role in communicating, connecting, and interacting with other children and adults. Books can help children build social skills! Children can learn perspective taking, problem solving, topics for conversation, and empathy from reading stories.
Books are Great for Young Children, too!
Books are not just for older children that know how to read, but can also help younger children! Picture books are great for increasing vocabulary and actions and introducing young children to grammar. You may want to choose books that offer extra enticement–such as “lift the flap”, books with textures, or that have structures that appear when you turn the page. Some books sold for preschoolers have more verbiage and higher level vocabulary than young children can understand or will enjoy. Feel free to restate the story in your own words to keep your child’s interest.
Help with Self-Confidence
Books can build self-confidence, as well as help your child understand their own culture, and increase empathy towards others’ cultures. Hearing and reading stories gives children the chance to stand back and observe how others are able to strive and succeed in difficult situations, showing them that they can do it too.
Books can do so much for children and their development. There are endless possibilities when it comes to reading!
~ Victoria King, MA CCC-SLP
