What can you do in fifteen minutes? Check your email, clean the kitchen(not in my house), take a shower and fill your gas tank. All these things may be done in fifteen minutes but what impact do they have on your child’s future. Not much.
Reading to your child for just fifteen minutes a day has been proven to increase a child’s literacy skills and help them develop an active imagination.
Children who are read to during the formative years of birth-five years old are shown to have more interest in reading through out their life.
What does reading give a child? Reading helps develop a child’s vocabulary, helps a child learn to spell, gives them the ability to follow plot-lines and increases their studying skills later in their education.
The ability to read and process a story starts at a young age. Some experts even suggest reading to your child as early as 6 weeks from birth. I have seen this personally. I am not going to brag on myself I am far from the perfect parent, but reading has always been an important part of my life and my husband’s life. Just as our parents before us loved to read, we do too, and we are now instilling that into our two sons. Neither can read yet, but they love to look at books and have books read to them.
I remember when my now four year old was 15 months old. He would sit on our couch in our apartment and look through his VeggieTales books. It was so cute and we took tons of pictures.
Why did he do that? He was mimicking his parent’s behavior. Books have always been a balm for me. They help me to travel through time and around the world. Books teach me about different cultures and ideologies. Literature can allow you to be anything you want to be. That is the present I want to give my children. The ability to expand their minds and explore the world.
You too can give your child this precious gift. All you have to do is spend 15 minutes a day reading to your child or having your child read to you.
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