Introduction
How to encourage reading in children? – Find exciting stories, open new worlds, increase knowledge, and enhance imagination and creativity… Reading is not just a hobby or something that entertains us. And it is an activity that nourishes and feeds our brains.
Several studies claim that reading can help improve our emotional state and thus increase our satisfaction, and it can help us reduce stress and enhance empathy and social skills.
Despite this, it is a habit that not all people manage to introduce into their routines, and that is usually costly to promote in the little ones.
benefits of reading
Reading is an activity with significant repercussions for the psychological development of people. It allows us to train to understand and interact with our environment and the elements surrounding us.
Strengthens neural connections.
It feeds skills like cunning, analysis, expression, and language.
Improves the ability to exchange information and knowledge.
It improves memory and delays the onset of dementia symptoms.
It stimulates empathy and the ability to imagine.
We relate what we read to our events, which can help us remember and confront personal experiences.
Enhance creativity.
Reduce stress.
How to encourage reading in children?
Getting used to reading favors the intellectual development of the little ones. It is a habit we can acquire from childhood, although it is often difficult to establish.
Reading has multiple benefits, as we have seen. It promotes language development, communication, understanding of emotions, and management in boys and girls. If we encourage this habit in the little ones, we will get them to understand and interact better with the world around them, understand it, and know how to relate to the environment.
Create an attractive and accessible reading space
If they are related to books from a young age, it will be easier for them to turn to them later through play. Books adapted to each stage of development are visually appealing and tactilely stimulating, drawing their attention. They approach them in the early stages of development, discovering the sensations, experimenting with the senses and not only the content (colors, shapes, textures, books with sounds…).
Reading can be a bonding moment.
Especially in the early years, the link with reading is related to the personal link. That is, it must be a shared moment of connection. However, we must try to promote emotionally charged meetings in which we share care, affection, and pampering with reading. In this way, they will seek these sensations through this activity.
It is as simple as establishing the routine of reading with them before going to sleep or at some point during the day that we are calm in a comfortable place, which relaxes us. In this way, they will also associate reading with a moment of peace and tranquillity that takes them away from everyday stressors.
Promote imagination and the creation process
When it is still us and we who read them, we must consider how we do it. Depending on what happens in the story, the tone, volume, and changes in the voices will make them better understand the emotions transmitted and empathize and connect with them.
We can also not only stick to reading stories or books but create stories with them to enhance the imagination and make them protagonists.
Take your interests into account.
Show them different options and introduce other stories adapted to their age and stage of development so that they discover their tastes in reading.
This is essential to maintain interest, and it is something that, little by little, they will be able to establish and discover on their own. Still, in the beginning, we must provide them with and facilitate this exploration.
Moreover, let us remember that in April, the day of the book is celebrated. And many fairs and exhibitions are held where we can take children to explore and learn about reading.
Space
If we are talking about how reading can benefit our state of mind. We must try to make the place where we read to them, or they read comfortable and like it. In this way, we will enhance those positive sensations, and they will seek that place of peace with greater ease.
It does not have to require extra investment or ample space. Let’s find a place in the house with good lighting (natural or artificial) and put pillows or a small rug if we don’t have an exclusive sofa or armchair for it. They can have a basket or a drawer to store and order their books to have them at hand and choose what they want at any time.
Establish a routine to know How to encourage reading in children
To create a habit, it is necessary to establish a routine. We must not cross the line of obligation, or it can become tedious.
If it is also difficult for us. It is vital to contemplate the idea that being an example for the little ones is one of the best ways for these activities to attract them because they will imitate us.
In the same way, the routine can be as simple as that space we must share with them to read to them or read together. And also that the act itself is rewarded and the bond we were talking about.
On a day-to-day basis, we can take the opportunity to visit a bookstore or look at the book section. If we go shopping somewhere. Small actions allow them to explore and connect with this world.
