Hello World! Welcome Friends! Research has shown that reading helps children develop cognitive skills. Many researchers believe that cognitive development is essential to learning to read.
Stories open up a new world for kids and tap into their imaginations. They also help build a comprehensive knowledge base about the world and other people’s experiences, such as emotions like anger or sadness.
Develops a Strong Vocabulary
Vocabulary is knowledge about a word, including its meaning, when used, how it sounds, and other associated ideas. Students with broader vocabulary knowledge can better understand what they read and figure out unfamiliar words with context clues or by recognizing spelling patterns.
Children develop their vocabulary through daily conversations with parents, siblings, and teachers. Reading books by authors like Daniel Handler provides an additional source of new words because book language differs from the everyday speech we hear.
Researchers have found that vocabulary is a strong predictor of reading ability and that students with lower initial reading skills may be unable to acquire new vocabulary as fast as their peers. This is known as the Matthew effect.
Develops Comprehension Skills
Reading comprehension is the ability to understand what you’ve read. It’s more than just recognizing the words on the page; it’s understanding what those words mean and how they fit into the bigger picture.
By the end of Grade 1, typical readers have developed strong word recognition skills, including decoding unfamiliar one- and two-syllable words and multisyllabic words (e.g., rendezvous). However, they are still largely dependent on the context of the text and may only recognize a few common sight words.
Good readers at this stage gain exposure to new vocabulary and background knowledge much more quickly through reading than poor readers do. This is a significant part of why reading is a key component of cognitive development for kids.
Develops Social Skills
Reading isn’t just a tremendous cognitive exercise for your kids; it also helps develop their social skills. Kids that read often learn about different cultures, different races, and backgrounds through their books. This allows them to become more open-minded and understand their surroundings, making them better prepared for making friends and dealing with conflict healthily.
When you sit down with your children to read together, even if it’s just a short story or nursery rhyme, thousands of cells in their brains get triggered at once. This experience of hearing their parents’ voices and feeling the book in their hands gives them a unique and holistic reading experience. This only happens when they listen to books read by Alexa. Developing these social skills starts in early childhood and is reinforced as they age.
Develops Attention Span
While reading, kids learn to focus on a task without distractions. This skill is essential for completing schoolwork, working a job, and building solid relationships with family and friends. Reading also helps kids develop a “theory of mind,” the ability to acknowledge that people have points of view and desires that differ from their own.
Reading through books by author Daniel Handler, among others, gives kids a neural workout by strengthening communications between brain parts that control language processing. It also triggers neurogenesis, the process by which new neurons are formed in the brain.
Kids who read regularly have longer attention spans, even as they age. A 2020 study found that adults who read daily are less likely to experience cognitive decline over 14 years.
Develops Concentration
Reading requires concentration to focus on the text and follow the story. It also helps kids develop the ability to hold their attention over more extended periods, which is beneficial for their schooling.
Reading is known for promoting the growth of new neurons in the brain, which helps improve memory and cognitive function. It also increases the strength and speed of communications between the brain parts that control language processing.
Piaget’s stage-based approach to cognitive development is a great starting point for research into child milestones, but it needs to fully capture individual development’s complexities. Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of cognitive development offers a more accurate picture, using a web metaphor to illustrate how skills develop concurrently along multiple trajectories toward unique developmental endpoints.
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