Although sometimes we do not fully make it, when we read a book to our children we trigger a rainbow of profound emotions that seduce in our memory and in that of our children, becoming a very precious family heritage
«When you read a book to a child, the voice is history; It gives body to history, it fills it, as the water fills the river bed ». These are the words that the poet Bruno Tognolini has chosen to tell us about the magic that the reading aloud to children It releases in the parents-child relationship.
The data, updated about ten years ago, indicate that less than 30% of Italian families are composed of “readers with a regular voice”, parents, that is, that they read at least one book to children no less than five days a week. A desolant data, which has distant roots; Reading aloud is in fact an often hereditary habit: if our parents have done the same with us, it is more likely that in turn we will read aloud with our children.
Trying to reverse the trend is the main purpose of many national associations, which deal with promoting reading aloud from the first months of children’s life, or even over the months of pregnancy.
But Why is reading aloud to children so important?
What is reading aloud to?
The “Born to read” association, born in 1999 precisely to promote theimportance of reading aloud from birth of the child and even earlier, he drafted a decalogue with the ten reasons why this activity must be considered so important. We mention the first four:
- Read me because I like it.
- Read me because we’re so together.
- Read me because I will remember.
- Read me because it is good for me.
To understand What is the purpose of reading aloudlet’s focus in particular on the first two points: reading aloud is above all a beautiful, pleasant and relational gesture, it is the seam of the bond with a child.
I read the first novel for children to my older son in the second week of Lockdown. I, passionate about children’s books, and he, omnivorous listener of fairy tales, nursery rhymes and illustrated books, we let ourselves be dragged with joy by the reckless adventures of Pippi Calzelunghe, while the situation around us was in some ways frightening and absurd.
Pippi Calzelunghe was the means that allowed me (completely unconsciously: at that moment I was looking for only help to face the long empty days) to transmit to my son that reassuring “everything will go well” that he was incomprehensible to him, he was incomprehensible.
Pippi’s unstoppable joy transported us to a world that we missed, made up of friends and adventures, and who certainly helped us to bear better everything we had around. Reading aloud to children also serves to this, to tell with our voice not only the world as it is, but also how it could be, in reality and fantasy.
Remembering us how loud reading is mainly a gesture of love and relationship, it can also help us to prevent books from being used on a parish medicine or a supplement; Keep in mind, that is, that you must not “take” some page every evening, as was done with the cod liver oil, but enjoy the beauty of immersing us, together with our child, on the page of a book.
Benefits of reading aloud to children
We try to understand in detail what are the Effects of reading aloud in children. The experimental pedagogy teacher of the University of Perugia, Federico Batini, has been studying the positive impact of this activity for some time, and has come to the conclusions that read to children stimulates and promotes learning and their cognitive skills, strengthens memory and increases the level of attention.
Here are some of the numerous benefits of reading aloud to children A book or a fairy tale.
The benefits on language and vocabulary
A child who knows many words will have more tools to understand and tell the world around him. Listening to readings aloud from the first months of life and then for all the years preceding primary school, allows children to enter into relationships with words that listen to less in everyday life. But also reached schooling, for children who can now read, the habit of listening to stories aloud continues to affect the development of language and vocabulary available.
The discovery of emotions
Why do children ask to read and always reread the same books? It is a way to become familiar with their emotions. The identification in the characters of the story allows the little ones to experience unknown moods within a context that reassures them: that of the stories of which they already know the ending. Reading and rereading every time they ask us is what we can do to support them in the construction of what is called “emotional literacy”: teaching them what emotions are, what they are used, how they express themselves and how to manage them consciously.
The benefits on memory and attention
Listening to a story, or even – further on, as adults – an entire novel in chapters, means exercising memory (recovering the thread of history every time, remembering what the last time had been talked about) and attention, which is stimulated by the interest in the narration and by the creation of the relationship with the reader.
The feeling of protection
Reading aloud is a form of care. When we read a book to our son, we look for a place as silent as possible, we choose the book, take the baby in his arms, if it is winter we cover ourselves with a blanket. They are all gestures that help build a special moment, which is then reinforced with the immersion in the fairy tale or in history. Being able to follow the events of the narrative – even when they arouse fear, anxiety, concern – safe in the arms of mom or dad, allows children to strengthen their securities, feeling protected and cared for.
The creation of a deep bond with books
If our parents have read aloud for us, when we were little, our brain will continue to combine, even as adults, the idea of reading with a feeling of well -being and pleasure. There is no magical recipe to grow new readers, but certainly being able to count on happy memories related to listening to stories is an excellent prerequisite for becoming adults they read.
Read aloud or low voice?
It is good to remember that – especially for the little ones – it would be more right to talk about “low voice reading”. In fact, the low voice reading allows you to create a suspended, poetic climate, within which it is the voice of the mother or dad that browse light between words. For younger children it is a central relational moment that also positively affects their safety.
Why is reading aloud to children is important?
Children’s books grow together with our children: at the beginning they are the soft ones to put in the bath, or the books cartoned with simple words and large drawings. Then, while our children start walking and speaking, the books also evolve with them: the stories plug, we move on to the rhyme of the nursery rhymes and then, gradually, towards the most complex narratives, up to the first great classics of children’s literature: Winnie the Pooh, the great gentle giant, Peter Pan, the wizard of Oz … In this wonderful path through the stories, the guiding thread is always the same: the voice of mother and dad.
If we give ourselves the Reading time aloud for our children – Maybe by inserting the ritual of going to choose the books in the library, bringing them back after reading them – we will have given a gift to them, but also to us.
Then when our children become great, the books that we will have read for them will remain in our bookstores. But just take one in hand to review our children children, at the age they had when we read with them. And this too is one of the magic of reading aloud: even if sometimes we do not completely make it, when we read a book to our children we trigger a rainbow of profound emotions that settles in our memory and in that of our children, becoming a very precious family heritage.
