Finding the Best Books For Your Children
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012Reading to your child is important, more important then many parents realize. It helps to promote strong emotional and intellectual development, just as much as any other activity a child can undertake with his or her parents. It’s important to take advantage of any opportunity to encourage your child’s growth, such as speaking, reading, or playing games, and turn it into a way to make learning fun. Reading is great for this.
Children at different ages learn best from different kinds of books, and it is important to figure out which books are best suited for your child at their current age. To help with that, this article will show you which books are best for which ages of children.
Birth to 12 months: Infants in this age group don’t need words in their books, but anything with large, clear pictures will help them. As their eyes are still developing, they need very clear images. Photographs can be good for this, but really and book with bright, large pictures will capture their attentions and help introduce them to the concept of reading from an early age.
From1 to 2 years: Keep to books with big, bright pictures, although you can include some words at this age. Toddlers like to carry their books around with them, so make sure the books you get are solidly built. Finally, even this young children prefer characters they can relate to, so try and get books either about babies their age, or about animals in similar situations to ones they might encounter themselves.
At 2-3 years old: Children aged two to three need books with (comparatively) strong themes, something that will involve them in the story and keep them reading. A good idea would be to use books involving their favorite characters from tv or games, as well as books that convey some sort of lesson. For instance, something about conduct or potty training work well. Best of all, are books that help to improve their understanding, especially books that teach them more about the alphabet, or include names of shapes and animals.
Preschoolers to teens: Of course preschoolers do not grasp how to read yet, but should by this time delight in reading books and learning new stories. They should relish looking at books by themselves and be capable of reciting definite parts of the stories by looking at the pictures on the pages. The older a child gets of course, the vital thing is to make books accessible that are suitable for the reading level. Teenagers should be capable of reading novels that include their interests without having very many pictures to entertain them.
At the end of the day, the most important thing for us as parents to do, is maintain our children’s interest in books. Many of us may not take to reading, but I’m sure we can all agree that learning to read is a vital component of childhood. So we, so you, need to take care to encourage a love of books, if only for the opportunities that opens up for them in the future, that might not be available otherwise.
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