Reading a story to your children at snooze time is not only a good way to set down sleep patterns and calm them down, it will also encourage your child's speech and language development. Listening to stories can also improve social skills and empathy, especially if you aks questions like "What would you do?". For school kids it will help to develop literacy skills in an enjoyable way.
Would you like to perfect your storytelling skills? Then follow these tips to read out the best bedtime stories ever.
Let them choose the story. Have your kids choose from three or four stories that are suitable for their age. This way, they will be even more interested in what's happening.
Get into character. Don't be afraid to use different voices for the various characters. Try to include movements in your story telling or carry out some of the actions of the characters and use intonation as means to transfer a certain atmosphere. Don't shy at going a little over the top, your kids will love it!
Read regularly. When your child is just learning to talk, I recommend regularly reading the same story. Traditional fairytales are a good way to start as they are short and all follow similar patterns. The first time a child hears a story they won't catch every detail — but hearing it over and over again helps them to become familiar with words and to establish speech patterns. This will help to develop their language skills and enhance their memory.
Include the pictures. Take time to look at the pictures that come with the story. I usually point out certain details and try to find similarities with my little listeners.
By the way, reading bedtime stories is not an activity reserved to mommies. Research showed that when dads read, kids are better at school. Dads should actively encourage their sons to read as reading is often thought of as a 'girly' thing to do, but if young boys see their main role model enjoying reading it'll encourage them too.
Nighty night.
Love it. It spot on. Reading is so important. It opens all doors to the future!
My son does a reading blog. He fell in love with reading in grade one and haven’t stop reading since.
My husband and I used to read him a story every night since he was just a few months old. Now he reads us the stories and taught my youngest to read in French and English.
Keep up your good work! Your kids are lucky kids to have a reading mommy!
I read stories to my son but not that frequent. I bought him a storybook and he enjoys listening to me. The storybook is in English but every sentence, I translate it to our dialect so he can understand. haha
Agree with your article. I did the same here when my son is a little kid. He often laughed when sleep, I guess he had a sweet dream 🙂
Bed story telling are so important part of growing up. Would definitely remember these tips when I will have kids.
Wow, this is such a great post that will help all parents to understand the importance of reading a book to our children. I need to go back and make more time for my kids to read a book.
The pointers you gave for making bedtime stories more fun are really spot on. I used to read out stories to my son mostly along those lines and he loved to visualize the stories. He has now gotten into the habit of reading on his own before sleep. I like the fact that it has instilled in him love of reading and the world of imagination that goes along with it, even though he is video game crazy
-Nandita
What a fun bedtime routine. Reading with your kids has so many benefits and it’s fun too!
My son and I used to do this a lot when he was younger. He loved Dr. Seuss story books most of all. 🙂
Definitely needed this today!!! Thank you for posting and allowing us to start our day right
What a lovely shot! Quality time is really important to a family, especially to kids.
Starting reading from an early age is super important steps in growing and learning. This is a super post i am sure it will help many parent out.
Hi,
Very good article.thanks for sharing.
Keep up the good work