While you are busy keeping track of immunization schedules and tracking milestones, there’s one important thing you can do for your baby that you can never start too soon. You can read out loud to your baby starting at birth. Here are five reasons to read to your infant.
- Brain development. Listening to you read forms and reinforces connections in your
baby’s developing brain. The first three years of this type of development are crucial. - Improved communication skills. Children whose parents read to them as babies not only have improved language skills, but also social and emotional skills. This helps with relationship building later in life.
- Increased vocabulary. Infants whose parents frequently talk/read to them know more words by age 2 than children who have not been read to.
- Increased interest in reading. The time you spend reading to your infant will become something both of you enjoy. This positive association with reading, along with the improved skills listening provides, will increase the odds they will become avid readers as they grow older.
- Better relationship with your child. Reading aloud improves your relationship with your child, and can reduce parental stress or depression. That’s great for everyone!
So go ahead and read to your newborn. And don’t stop even when they can read by themselves. Cherish the time reading together as long as they let you.
References and Resources:
http://www.aappublications.org/content/early/2014/06/24/aapnews.20140624-2
https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/03/health/reading-aloud-to-kids-go-ask-your-dad/index.html