"Oh, The Places You'll Go!": The Long-Term Benefits of Reading with your Children

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"Oh, The Places You'll Go!": The Long-Term Benefits of Reading with your Children
by Jaclyn Heinrich, Provisional Psychologist - BPsyc(Hons)/Clinical Masters Candidate
April 2021

Discovering the wizarding world of Harry Potter, the mischievous happenings of a Cat in a Hat, following Bilbo Baggins to desolate Smaug or solving a murder with Poirot on the Orient Express; books can take you anywhere. Reading is not only a great pastime for children and adults, it is also rich in benefits that will give your child a head-start in life and achieve higher in their future school academics.

How Can Parents Help?

Encouraging reading as early as infancy has shown long-term benefits, however, it is never too late to start. Reading aloud to your child, pointing to pictures in the book, reading in funny voices and using sounds to play and have fun with the story, all make the story more engaging and interactive for children and helps them learn whilst also having fun.

The University of Melbourne studied in great detail the benefit of parents reading to their children at a young age and the long-term impacts, finding:

- Reading daily to children aged 4-5 improves language, literacy, numeracy, and cognitive abilities in later life, and is noted to have the effect of being almost a year older
- Young persons who frequently read during age 4-5 achieve higher scores in NAPLAN testing

This study also found that parental income, education level and cultural background did not impact this causal effect between reading to children from a young age and their future schooling outcomes. In other words, no matter the child’s or parent’s background, reading with your child will help their future schooling and academic achievements.

How Old Should I Start?

Research suggests you can never start too early. Reading aloud to a baby, holding them in your arms, hearing tone, rhythm, and rhyme, and seeing pictures have all been identified as beneficial.

How Often Should I Be Reading To My Child?

Most benefits have been seen in children who are read to, 6 or 7 days a week.

The benefits of reading to children are seen in multiple areas of a child’s life, such as:

Imagination and Creation - assisting in developing imagination and getting creative juices flowing
Language skills and vocabulary –starting from a young age, children can get to know sounds and further progress to understanding words, language, sentence formation and grammar.
Concentration - improved concentration, especially over time moving from books with shorter texts and short stories to longer texts and novels
Bonding - stronger bonding with your child and spending quality time together (see Kate’s article about bonding with your children)
Academic Achievement - research has found the more a child reads the higher they achieve in subjects across the board.
Social Skills – improving social interactions with peers and adults.
Emotions - exploring feelings and emotions, such as empathy, by imagining how they would feel in a situation. This helps children process and understand new life events and the emotions which they bring
Cognition – promoting brain development across a range of areas.

How Do I Get My Child Involved? How To Incorporate Reading Into Your Daily Routine

Incorporating reading into your child’s daily routine is strongly recommended to ensure the above benefits. However, many parents often wonder, “how do I fit reading into our already busy schedule?”. Don’t worry, reading with your child doesn’t have to be a chore – it can actually be quite fun! Here are some simple ways to incorporate reading into your child’s life, making it work for everyone.

Just like brushing your teeth, showering, and eating, reading can be “slotted” into the day quite easily – before getting up in the morning, or just before going to bed at night. Some ideas to make the perfect reading time:

Before bed, put some quiet time in place, perhaps 20 minutes and share a story together, this can help ease your child into a relaxed state before sleep and promote healthier sleep initiation and maintenance.
Find a quiet and relaxing space without distractions, making it fun with bean bags, pictures from stories, a story book corner, reading chair etc.
Setting time aside for reading is also a great opportunity to talk through a story with children, talk through their emotions, feelings, and thoughts, and promote bonding time. To further engage their creativity, you can ask your child questions around the story such as “What do you think happened next?” or “If you could change the end, what would you change it to?” and “Who was your favourite character? …. and why?”
Involve your children in the book, encouraging them to repeat words after you, point and describe pictures.
To engage your child in the story, ask your children questions about the book prior to reading it, this may include who is the author/illustrator? What do you think the story is about? What is the message? This can help them to develop comprehension skills in really getting to know the story.
Involve siblings – depending on age, children can take turns reading to each other and parents can promote listening skills, communication skills and reading ability.

As soon as a toddler can ask for a book, allow them to start having a say in what to read – even if it means the same book over again. In these situations, children can discuss what new things they learnt in the particular book and other observations about the book.

How To Access Books

Always remember the local library, second-hand shops, and the specials table at the local shops.
But if you can’t access a book, try making up a story with your child or look for an alternative for them to read and ask about, such as:

Letters or brochures – asking them who they think it may be from, getting them to read the letter
menus at a restaurant – a great idea for older children so they can work out what they want to eat
Items at shops – ask what the item says, features of the item and even make up a story with the item

A child’s teacher will usually have access to a booklist which they may be able to provide, or at least provide suggestions of appropriate books to read. Alternatively, the following links have great suggestions of books to read for appropriate age groups:

A famous story by Dr Seuss called “Oh, the places you’ll go”, took its reader on an imaginative journey through a creative, colourful, and wonderful world. Reading has such an amazing capacity to open these doors to new worlds.

Sources
Cam Everlands Primary School (n.d.) 10 Benefits of Reading. Retrieved April 20, 2021, from https://www.cameverlands.org.uk/10-benefits-of-reading/
Kalb, G and Van Ours, J.C. (2012). Reading to young children: a head-start in life.
Raising Children (2020). Reading and Storytelling with Babies and Children. Retrieved April 20, 2021, from https://raisingchildren.net.au/babies/play-learning/literacy-reading-stories/reading-storytelling
The University of Melbourne and Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (2012). Reading to Young Children: A Head-Start in Life. Retrieved April 20, 2021, from https://www.education.vic.gov.au/documents/about/research/readtoyoungchild.pdf

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