Apart from being a great means to spend time and bond with your child, reading and storytelling promotes language, literacy and brain development in young ones.

Inculcating the practice of reading in your child

Reading to your little ones and narrating stories from a young age helps build a strong foundation for your child’s overall development. It also propels a vivid imagination that can help them pursue visual arts in later years. While you can find storytelling workshops, book cafes and kid-friendly libraries in the gulf region promoting reading and learning rhymes in droves, there’s no harm in making a proactive attempt at starting from your household. You don’t have to loosen your purse strings for this simple practice that can be easily fitted into your routine.

Some of the benefits that can be derived from making reading and storytelling a regular feature in your child’s life are as follows:

• Makes children familiar with sounds, words, language and the value of books
• Sparks your child’s imagination, stimulates curiosity and help his/her brain develop
• Develops social and communication skills
• Helps them learn the difference between ‘real’ and ‘make-believe’
• Makes it easy for your child to understand change and new or frightening events, and also the strong emotions that can go along with them
• Your child develops early literacy skills like the ability to listen to and understand words.

Children are curious, observant creatures, and so it’s not just the words you mumble when reading but the whole act itself that can have an impression on their young minds. Just by browsing books with your child, you can be a great storyteller and be successful in helping them take up the habit. Your child will learn by watching you hold a book the right way and seeing how you flip the pages. Bright illustrations in books will help leave a visual impact on your child’s mind.

It’s not just kids that benefit from reading and browsing books, parents too get to spend quality time with their offspring. It opens a whole new dimension to your relationship with your child and helps you better understand his/her skills and capabilities.

Songs and rhymes

To inject some fun in between a monotonous storytelling and reading session, you can mix it up with singing songs and saying rhymes. These are great activities and easy for your child to grasp, not to mention, a thoroughly enjoyable exercise. Owing to the sing-song nature of rhymes, children may develop literacy skills faster than with a reading session. Everything from the classics to modern sing-along-rhymes work perfectly.

You may also personalise your stories and share family stories that will familiarise them with the concept of a family better. Stories about family and culture also give children a sense of their place in the world. You can use actions and rhymes to get children involved in the story.

The best time to read to your child

There is no perfect time for storytelling. Any time is a good time. Carry your children’s books along at all times, and read to them whenever the situation permits. It could be bedtime, bath time, potty time, on the train, on the bus, in the car, in the park, in the pram, when you’re in the GP’s waiting room!

It’s not just books that hold all the knowledge you want to share with the cynosure of your eyes. Everyday items and objects with their bold letters, colours, patterns and pictures can also provide room for learning. Some of them are as follows:

• Packages at home or in the supermarket, especially food packaging
• Fruits and vegetables (their colours, shapes, starting letter etc) at home or in the market
• Clothing — what does the t-shirt slogan/logo say? What colour is it?
• Signs or posters in shops, restaurants or on buses and metros
• Menus — these can be fun for older children to look at and decide what they want to eat.

Tips for sharing books with babies and young children

• Make a routine and try to share at least one book every day. A reading chair or your bed is a perfect, cosy setting for reading
• Turn off the TV and find a quiet place to read to your child
• Hold your child close while you read, so he/she can see your face and the book.
• Make yourself audible and clear. Try out funny noises and sounds while narrating to add some fun
• Involve your child by encouraging talk about the pictures, and by repeating familiar words and phrases
• Let your toddler choose the books when he’s old enough and don’t refuse to read his favourite books over and over again

Types of books

Choosing the type of book you want to share with your child can be a tricky affair with the slew of children’s books at our disposal. However, there are a few thumb rules you can follow to sidestep this dilemma. Young children are often drawn to books, songs and stories that have good rhyme, rhythm, repetition, colours and illustrations. They shouldn’t be too dense with words and have a perfect balance between pictures and written content.

Some of the books you can add to your repertoire are picture books, fairytales, moral books (Aesop’s fables), children’s newspapers and magazines etc, which can be interesting and engaging for your child. Swapping books with friends, or in your parent group or nursery centre, can be a good way to try new books without having to pay for it. Libraries hold a sea of books too, so get to know your local library to have easy access to them.