Books and reading have been central to the cognitive and emotional development of both children and adults in the modern world. Literacy is crucial for personal and professional advancement, which puts books at the center of development for kids.
Kids need books because books and reading are crucial for developing cognitive, communicative, and emotional skills that they need to succeed in the modern world. Reading helps kids develop their language, imagination, and comprehension skills, among other things.
In this article I’ll detail the benefits of books for kids, especially in the early years, and why it’s so important to keep books at home.
Benefits of Books for Kids
There are several benefits that books have for kids, and I’m going to list them out and explain them below.
Language and Vocabulary
The primary benefit of books and reading for kids is the development of language skills and vocabulary. Through books, kids are introduced to new words and sentence structures and develop an instinctual understanding of the language.
Children also learn how to enunciate words when their parents read to them. When kids are introduced to books and reading from a young age, they can learn new words and their meaning, how they’re pronounced and used in sentences, and how to thread words together in a sentence.
Imagination
An important benefit of reading for kids is that it helps widen their imaginative skills. Reading encourages kids to imagine the scenarios and people described with illustrations to help the younger ones.
Developing imagination encourages kids to think widely and creatively while also helping them be open to new ideas and understand new things as they come across them. Imagination is a crucial element of innovation and discovery, and fostering imagination in young children supports their ability to create and problem-solve as they get older.
The practice of imagination also exercises the brain and keeps it active, strengthening it and staving off age-related mental health conditions.
Critical Thinking
Reading is known for fostering critical thinking. When kids read a wide variety of books, they’re exposed to and engage with a range of ideas, concepts, and worldviews and realize the significance of each. They can then contextualize different ideas, draw connections between them, and summarize them for themselves and to an audience.
While reading, kids are forced to imagine the possibilities that could exist with the information they’re given and how a given set of circumstances could produce a specific result.
Critical thinking is difficult to teach and typically something that needs to be developed and cultivated individually. So reading is a great way to get kids started in the right direction.
Empathy
Reading is one of the best ways to introduce children to stories, cultural ideas, and contexts above and beyond their limited experience of the world. These stories help kids learn how to communicate and build connections with people, no matter how different they appear.
Different stories also offer different worldviews in context, so kids can understand differences in the way people live and behave, allowing them to develop a more open mind.
Research also demonstrates that reading books improves kids’ emotional intelligence. By reading, kids can learn social values and rules of social behavior. They also learn how to put themselves in other people’s shoes.
Comprehension and Retention
Comprehension, or the ability to construct meaning, is a skill that’s developed with repeated exposure to concepts and ideas. Kids can develop their abilities to comprehend by reading books and taking the time to think about them.
As kids read more, they can see patterns in the way the stories are structured and organized and the meanings created by words, sentences, and ideas in the books.
Reading printed material also helps kids retain what they’re reading. Books help kids sharpen their focus and concentration, which improves their memory. With time and experience reading, they can improve their retention skills.
Reduction of Screen Time
Too much screen time has many detrimental effects on kids. It makes it harder for kids to sleep, increases the likelihood of them developing mental health issues, and raises the risk of gaining excessive weight.
Screen time guidelines suggest that young children shouldn’t have more than one to two hours in front of a TV or computer screen.
Reading offers an alternative to screen time that is just as entertaining in the case of very young children can be a sensory experience that engages all their senses.
Why Is Reading Important in Early Years?
The best time to prepare children to succeed as readers is when they’re young.
Reading is very important in the early years because it helps young children figure out their world. They learn to make meaning, develop their curiosity, and strengthen bonds with the people around them.
The sooner that kids start to read, the more time they have to benefit from books. They can develop language skills, improve their comprehension and vocabulary, and have an improved capacity to retain the information they’re introduced to.
Reading helps develop a young child’s brain, stimulating it right when vital connections are being made, and forms the basis of their learning abilities.
Why Do Kids Need Books at Home?
It’s not only important that kids are exposed to reading and stories, but they should also have access to books at home.
Kids need books at home because books increase the probability of a child’s academic and professional success and vocabulary development. Having books impacts how kids can access information, comprehend information, and make the best use of their education.
According to studies, kids who grew up with books around them tend to achieve higher levels of education than kids who grew up in bookless homes.
Final Thoughts
Kids need books because reading books directly impacts the development of their brain. It affects their linguistic and cognitive abilities and helps them become more empathetic people who can communicate effectively with a wide variety of people.
Not only do kids need to read books, but they also need to have books at home to support their academic and professional success.
Sources
- Medline Plus: Screen Time and Children
- Edarabia: Enunciation and Pronunciation
- World Literacy Foundation: Reading Enhances Imagination
- Critical Thinking Organization: The International Critical Thinking Reading and Writing Test
- Reading Partners: Research Shows Reading Improves Kids Emotional Intelligence
- Reading Rockets: What Research Tells Us About Reading, Comprehension, and Comprehension Instruction
- UNICEF Parenting: Why it’s important to read to your baby
- JCFS: The Importance of Having Books in Your Home
