Reading is the activity, par excellence, that brings us closer to information, culture, the world of fiction and fantasy, therefore, it allows us to acquire knowledge and develop our creativity.
The importance of reading in children is based on its benefits when studying and acquiring knowledge. Parental collaboration is necessary to boost the learning process.
Dr. John S. Hutton, from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Ohio, conducted research using functional magnetic resonance imaging to analyze cognitive stimulation at home and the brains of preschool children, finding distinct activation patterns between children who were read to at home versus those who were not read to.
The expert studied 19 preschoolers aged 3 to 5, including seven children from low-income households. Their primary caregivers responded about the time they spent reading to the children, access to books at home, and parent-child interaction (conversation, play, teaching numbers and shapes).
The sample of children underwent MRI scans while listening to age-appropriate stories through headphones. The images detected changes in oxygen-rich blood flow in the brain, an indirect indicator of brain activity.
The more home reading caregivers reported, the more activity Hutton and his researchers detected in the parietal lobes, which are the areas of the child’s brain that work to give meaning to language (understanding what is heard and what is read).
Additionally, the team detected the activation of certain areas of the occipital lobes important for visualization, noting that this is probably due to the task of imagining what happens in the story. Therefore, children who are read to at home tend to have more experience in forming an idea of what they hear.
Based on these results, language specialists, speech therapists, educational psychologists, and educators must do important work to reinforce to parents the importance of regularly reading stories to their children and conversing with them beyond what each page of the text relates, highlighting that reading allows for:
- Learning and acquiring knowledge
- Growing
- Having a good time
- Thinking and reflecting
- Traveling
- Getting to know other ways of thinking
- Affirming personality
- Relieving tension
- Being informed
Tips for education and speech therapy professionals to motivate children to read, whether or not they have had this habit at home:
- A child does not digest just any book. If they do not understand what they read, they will not develop a genuine reading activity. Therefore, they need a text tailored to their abilities, adapted to their sensitivity, and that takes into account their slow progression.
- To accompany a beginner reader, it is necessary to know their tastes. Animals, witches, prehistory… The proposal must be broad and varied. If a child is fascinated by a topic, they will voluntarily decide to focus on understanding the text, aided by images.
- Initially, it is advisable to continue reading the texts to them, because their reading is difficult and slow and can end up cutting off communication.
- One should not confuse school reading, which is an exercise in progression, with reading for pleasure. In reading for pleasure, one can make mistakes, misinterpret the meaning. It doesn’t matter. They will correct themselves.
- Leave books visible and within reach: so they can pick them up whenever and however they want. Let them invent, explore books, read them out of order. Curiosity is one of the greatest gifts a child can have.
- When they don’t know how to read and pretend they are reading aloud, you should let them. The drawings stimulate their imagination and the pleasure of holding a book in their hands.
- Tell them stories: it helps children to concentrate, to want to know the ending, and creates a dependence on future stories. When they are older, they will look for those stories in books.
- If the child is reluctant, do not force them, but do encourage them, for example, “if you read for five minutes you will get something you want, or I will let you color (if it is a pleasant task for the child in question).”
- Promote reading aloud because it helps with pronunciation and syntax. However, when they are reading aloud, do not correct them: sometimes they get stuck on a word or read it incorrectly. It is better to let them follow their rhythm. You must overcome the temptation to correct them, as it can discourage them. Once they finish reading, then you can proceed to repeat with them the words where they made mistakes during the reading.
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