Book Reading With Infants

The benefits of reading with pre-school age children are obvious. Less apparent, but just as valuable over the long term, are the benefits of reading books with infants. Health practitioners explain that reading with infants is a valuable way to form a bond with the baby in your care, and foster in them a lifelong love of reading and of learning.

A stronger connection and a boosted potential for learning are just two of the many advantages of reading to babies. Keep reading to learn about all the reasons to read with your new baby.

Strong baby-parent relationships

When you read to your baby every day, it helps you develop a precious relationship with your baby. Science has confirmed that babies can hear and recognize different voices even while still in the womb. By the time they are born, it’s estimated that infants can understand a vocabulary of about 200 words. But vocabulary isn’t important right now: the point we’re making here is that when you read to your baby, it isn’t just noise that they are experiencing.

New relationships will develop much faster and stronger, and relationships with the birth mother (and anyone else present during the pregnancy) will be strengthened. Your attentiveness during this period, and the emotions –good and bad- that you display to your baby will remain with them on a subconscious level for the rest of their life. Reading with your infant can be a fun, relaxing time for both of you. Choose books that you enjoy reading and which bring back fond memories from your own childhood. Create a pleasant ritual with your baby that can help de-stress you both from tasks that require more physical and emotional energy.

Learning about myth and morality

For thousands of years, we’ve been passing on our sense of right, wrong, and behavioral ideals through or explanations of the characters and their actions in our tales. The storytelling experience is even more rewarding for your infant if you feel in the gaps between the lines with extra information of your own. Give them the reasoning about why something good or bad happened to that particular person in the story. This engaged form of reading helps children develop their own sense of right and wrong in the future.

Learning speech sounds and word concepts

Reading helps toddlers to learn to talk. As they hear you reading to them, they begin to pick out meaning. As they grow into older babies, they start to repeat whatever sounds and words they find interesting. Slowly, they learn to sound out longer words and complete sentences.

Developing strong learning skills

Infants enjoy reading with you. It helps them form solid reading and learning skills. It is generally seen that children who have greater aptitude for learning have been enjoying reading since their early child-hood. The majority of such students enjoy learning difficult and dry subjects and solving complex mathematical problems. Children who didn’t have as much exposure to reading in their early childhood tend to find reading more difficult, and struggle more with complex and abstract ideas.

Early readers learn how reading is done in their parents’ language(s), and absorb the rules of grammar quite subconsciously. Exposure at this stage of their life is worth a ton of active effort later on. Breaking up sentences makes content easier to understand, but don’t be afraid to read adult novels with them: they are too young to comprehend any unsuitable themes, but the richness of the language to which they are exposed, along with your genuine interest in what you are reading, are very valuable.

Improved communication and problem-solving skills

A healthy baby should be expressive and interactive. Reading to your little ones, encourages and helps them to learn to talk to you in a way that expresses what they are experiencing and what they want. A healthy way of communicating develops, where your child can understand the problems and situations by relating him/herself to the individual he/she reads about. Moreover, your child picks up possible ways of overcoming a situation and resolving issues.

Clearer vision and understanding

It is also generally observed that early readers become quick at learning the gist of the story or content. This might be a strengthening of some innate objective ability, or it might just be familiarity with the icons and patterns of literature. Either way, such children develop a stronger ability to think about logic and the probable reasons that create any given situation. Exposure to reading from infancy sharpens a growing child’s sense of understanding and logical reasoning.

Increasing a sense of curiosity

Exposing your infant to a world of adventures and experiences in books will help him to become more interested in learning about new things, people and ideas about the world around him. Full of interesting stories, he will be more likely to treat the world as an interesting place; more curious; more courageous to start discussions and solve problems. This curiosity and confidence is an advantage in learning about the different directions that life can take.

Improved attention to detail

Consistent reading habits help babies train their minds to focus on the details. Attention to detail will help them to comprehend matters easier and with less frustration. It also helps them become well disciplined when they grow up. They will be more used to following your words and meanings, and able to understand your instructions later on, and be more confident communicators in general.