Reading Aloud to Children Improves Crucial Development Skills

As well as relationship building, reading helps children develop phonologically. When reading aloud, children are able to associate sounds and pronunciation with written words by practicing sound patterns. According to ReachOutandRead.org, “When children do well at detecting and manipulating syllables, rhymes and phonemes, they tend to learn more quickly [how] to read.”

Whether your child is 11-months or 11-years, reading out loud has no age limit. Just as you would transition from pop-up, picture books to nursery rhymes to 50+ pages of a Dr. Seuss story, you adjust the complexity of what you’re reading as your child grows. “It’s this idea of marinating children in higher-level vocabulary,” said Pam Allyn, founder of LitWorld.Org. Although there isn’t much evidence to support improved reading comprehension among older children being read aloud to, literacy experts say that if you increase the difficulty of your reading context, children can hear and understand more complex words that build confidence to tackle different forms of literature on their own.

So as you get your child cleaned up, dressed, and tucked into bed tonight, pull out a book, any book, and read it aloud. The long-term effects can drastically improve his/her future across all stages of child development.

To further motivate our Brightside Academy team and families, we invite everyone to participate in our Dr. Seuss/Read Across America contest, going on now across our social media accounts. Simply post a picture of you reading to your child and include hashtag #BSAFamilyLiteracy before March 12th. Four families have the chance to win a set of NEW Dr. Seuss books!