Quarantine has forced families to stay home all day. It is undoubtedly difficult to find new games always or ways to spend time with children and avoid nervousness at a time when coronavirus is spreading everywhere.
Among the things in which time can be invested is reading because it is one of the most important basic skills that a child must learn. It is his first step towards education. The excellent reader child is a self-confident, bold, self-respecting child to a large extent, able with ease to move from educational or career success to a greater one.
Some may ask how we can make reading favourable to a child?
Experts say: “Teach the child to read through encouragement. Parents can help the child become a good reader without forcing him to read; compulsion leads a child to hate reading and to consider it a tedious and obnoxious routine task.”
One of the most important things to make a child like reading is reading an interesting story for the child at night before bed, which is the first step for him to learn and enjoy it. From the moment he is born until he reaches the age of five, he shows a strong curiosity to learn about everything and anything. This is a good opportunity to introduce him to books. Besides, reading to the child at night creates strong bonds between mother and child, it helps relieve them of stress and helps the child sleep.
Also, the child should be taught to read at an early age. The child at this age is eager to get the attention of others and have an influence on their feelings. The mother should take the opportunity and start reading short stories. She needs to represent each of the characters by changing the tone of her voice. This helps the child to enjoy this fun experience.
Regarding the importance of reading, Zwan al Rahbi, a reader of children’s literature, says, “By reading, the child’s language and communication skills develop. It is important for a mother to make reading experience an enjoyable thing for the child. She should encourage her child to read aloud because reading aloud helps the child understand the text, enhances his ability to focus, and improves his verbal skill”.
She added that the mother should follow a daily programme of reading to her child. “Nothing encourages the child to love reading and to have his own book except reading to him, especially aloud. While the mother is reading to her child, she must move her finger in the direction of the words; this helps the child connect both words; the read and the printed.”
A new study confirmed that reading from a young age can increase the levels of general intelligence in a child and strengthen the general cognitive abilities of the human later. Also, reading from childhood helps train children’s abstract thinking; because they usually have to imagine people, places and things that are strange to them while reading. Reading from a young age also helps to solve general problems and helps improve child’s results in intelligence tests, allowing him to have a successful career path in the future.
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