Reading may well be the most important skill that your child will ever learn. Language and reading don’t come naturally to young children, though it may look that way because they can learn so much, so fast and so easily! Here are five reasons why teaching your toddler to read can be a huge benefit to them:
- Learning to read opens up your child’s ability to learn in so many other areas of school and life. Studies correlate literacy with success in most academic areas, as well as finding a positive correlation between literacy and self–esteem.
- Your child’s brain develops faster in infancy than it does later in life. There is more neuroplasticity early in life – a young child’s brain is more flexible and adaptable to change based on their environment than is the case for an older child.
- Each child has a natural window of opportunity for learning language early in life. It is easier to learn high-level language skills as an infant or toddler, and it becomes harder later on.
- Most parents know that it’s important to talk to babies. We do it naturally, even though the babies can’t understand any words at first. It is also important that babies “see language”. It helps them to learn to read in much the same way as they learn to speak and understand language from hearing it.
- The long-term effects of early literacy are very positive. Independent studies have shown that the earlier a child learns to read, the better the child reads, even factoring in IQ and socio-economic status.
