The Benefits of Reading on Children’s Mental Health and Development
Oleh: Michelle Pannecoucke
The tradition of reading to children and giving them good books is healthy pastime for the kids and helps their personal development.
It’s a given that maths and sciences will keep their minds sharp. Developing math skills will help memory skills especially and the children’s overall mental health. But reading also has qualities and influences that can benefit: everyone. Reading is especially good for children as they mature.
Books for Tots
Giving children good books at an early age will encourage them to be well read and smart individuals. Reading with the children will encourage them even more so. Reading a story with children at bedtime is a part of many families bedtime routine and is an excellence way to let kids relax just before they are to sleep. Not only will the child learn to love reading and become well-read, but they will love the time spent and the memories they are left with. They may even sleep better.
Reading and Children Mental Health
Reading helps in different areas of a child’s mental health. Because the child spends time looking at good writing and proper spelling and grammar, reading improves writing skills. Young kids who read a lot may also become more articulate because they are learning the language not only by hearing it, but by reading it.
Reading encourages a child’s imagination and develops creativity as the stories they read leave room for a child to add to them at will. It is especially good for children who are visual learners and have a good memory for what they see and read for themselves. If the child is an auditory learner, reading to him or her will work the same way.
Kids and Classics
The classics that are read in school, in university or college especially, are considered so because of their popularity; their influence in the society of their time: their timelessness; and because they are, for the most part, well written pieces of literature, many times by fairly ordinary people. This is why students study Shakespeare, Dickens, Austen, the Brontés etc.
Reading what are considered classics is just as good for children as it is for adults. There are classics for children, and they are not simply abridged versions of adult classics, but were written with children in mind. This list may help in finding good classics for children.
A Child’s Library
Besides what are considered classics, there is a plethora of books for children that are educational, pleasing, fun and completely timeless. From Dr. Seuss to Robert Munsch to Beverly Cleary and many wonderful children’s authors whose books will never grow old, there is something for everyone.
Even as kids go through their teen years, the books they read as they go from children’s books to more adult books will continue to help them develop in the same way that children’s books do.
Source: http://www.suite101.com/content.why-books-are-good-for-kids-a105142
Editor: Michael R. Clarke
