Reading aloud to children and giving them access to books is the best way to ensure they are prepared to enter kindergarten. The Ohio Governor’s Imagination Library mails young children one book each month until their 5th birthday. The program is available to all children in Ohio from birth to age 5 at no cost to their families. Parents and caregivers can enroll their children at OhioImaginationLibrary.org.
This service is available through a partnership with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library and various local affiliates.
There are four questions you can ask while reading to your child that will start a conversation: What do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel? What do you think might happen?
A 2008 report revealed what many parents already know. Reading aloud to young children, particularly in an engaging manner, promotes emergent literacy and language development and supports the relationship between child and parent. In addition, it can promote a love for reading which is even more important than improving specific literacy skills. When parents hold positive attitudes towards reading, they are more likely to create opportunities for their children that promote positive attitudes towards literacy. Also, they can help children develop solid language and literacy skills. When parents share books with children, they can promote their children’s understanding of the world, their social skills and their ability to learn coping strategies.
Simply put, the more a child reads, the bigger the child’s vocabulary grows. One 2019 study by the National Institute of Health (NIH) estimated that children who are regularly read to in the five years leading up to kindergarten are exposed to 1.4 million more words than children who aren’t read to during those years. Sitting down with a picture book can make a huge difference in a child’s future. Children who are read to on a regular basis are more likely to have strong literacy skills.
Groucho Marx once said, “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”
.neFileBlock {
margin-bottom: 20px;
}
.neFileBlock p {
margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
}
.neFileBlock .neFile {
border-bottom: 1px dotted #aaa;
padding-bottom: 5px;
padding-top: 10px;
}
.neFileBlock .neCaption {
font-size: 85%;
}
