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Reading Aloud to Young Children Has Benefits for Behavior and Attention
- weavie 9y agoI probably get as much out of reading to my daughter as she does. I absolutely love some of the stories. I will be very sad when she gets to an age when she no longer wants me to read to her. Mind you, a friend of mine was still reading to his daughter when she was 18, so hopefully I have a few years to go still! Any recommendations for childrens stories that are a must read?
- marktangotango 9y agoPumpkin Trouble by Jan Thomas is one me, my wife, 3 and 5 year old all laughed at last night
- organsnyder 9y agoSome of my favorites: - "Book with No Pictures" (B.J. Novak [yes, that's Ryan from The Office]) - anything by Sandra Boynton - Boxcar Children series - Cam Jansen series - "Ada Twist, Scientist" (Andrea Beaty) We have tons of books, from a variety of sources; some are duds, IMHO, mainly gifts from my MIL (tip for giving books to children: read through them first, from the perspective of reading that book every day for a month; bargain bins contain tons of garbage). Unfortunately, the kids like some of the duds, so they slip them in from time to time.
- jerf 9y ago"anything by Sandra Boynton" The Sandra Boynton children's music CDs are also quite tolerable as such things go.
- gknoy 9y agoSeconded -- we've found them to be excellent road-trip music, too.
- buxtehude 8y agoSandar Boyton books are great - but the music CDs I found a bit wanting and painful to listen to. I highly recommend: 1. "Dinosaurs and Dragons" by Kevin Roth. 2. "Hot Dog" and "Sing Along" by Caspar Babypants (aka. Chris Ballew) 3. Saturday Morning Cereal Bowl podcasts: https://saturdaycerealbowl.podbean.com/ https://saturdaycerealbowl.podbean.com/ The Halloween podcast is one of my favorites My son loves to listen to all of these.
- artpepper2 9y agoI read a ton of graphic novels with my 6-year-old - DC Super Hero Girls - Cleopatra in Space - Adventure Time - Zite the Spacegirl
- t3rseCode 9y agoThat's awesome. I read a lot to my kids but it's always been tricky/hard to do graphic novels/comics.
- christocracy 9y agoDon’t forget “Mighty Jack”, which leads into the Zita series. I like all books by Raina Telgemeier, as well. I read these graphic novels to my 3 and 6 year-olds, over and over.
- vixen99 9y agoRichmal Crompton's Just William stories had us all falling about on occasions. Richmal Crompton had no children but knew quite a bit about how small boys operate. She wrote the first story nearly 100 years ago but they remain popular for very good reason.
- clarkevans 9y agoHarriet the Hamster Princess, or really, anything by Ursula Vernon.
- shadowycoder 9y agoI'll second this. My 6 year old really loves anything by her. Great writing and just plain fun stories.
- scubaguy 9y agoOff the top of my head Rosie Revere Engineer and others from the same author The Fairy Bell Sisters Magic Treehouse Junie B Jones Princess in Black Ling and Ting series The Golly Sisters Sisters (comic book) Harold and the Purple Crayon
- cowpewter 9y agoMy favorite from childhood, and which still holds up quite well as an adult, is Once on a Time, by AA Milne (same author as the Winnie the Pooh stories).
- kpeetry 9y agoCatwings series by Ursula K. Le Guin
- guelo 9y agoChildren book recommendations are very age-dependent.
- msluyter 9y agoThe Elephant & Piggie series, by Mo Willems. IMHO, the best kids book we've encountered. Some of the nice features: a) well drawn and sharply delineated characters. (One of my pet peeves about some kids books is difficult to distinguish images that tend to get lost in a sea of bright colors.) b) the text is _large_ and changes size according to the emotions of the characters. c) phrases are repeated -- great for language acquisition -- but not in a way that's irritating or vacuous. d) funny stories; real emotions that toddlers can grok. e) good construction -- high quality printing, thick pages, etc...
- esmi 9y agoI definitely like that series as well but I'd add: f) Written with a rhythmic metre -- An example being Pout-Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen. It almost feels like one sings this book rather than read it. I've noticed with the books that are almost musical in nature young kids can "read along" (basically recite) the entire text after just a few readings even when the vocabulary is tough and absolutely beyond their reading ability. And if you leave it and come back to it in a couple of weeks they'll still know it with uncanny accuracy.
- artpepper2 9y ago+1 Another nice thing about that series, for an early reader, is you can read one character and your child takes the other.
- jacobolus 9y agoThe 20 month old thinks they are funny, but personally I find these books boring after 10 times reading the same book. YMMV. Some of his recent favorites: Green Eggs and Ham, The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything, Duck in the Truck, Snip Snap! What’s That?, Gaston, Caps for Sale, Harry the Dirty Dog, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.
- kasey_junk 9y agoCompletely unrelated & not meant to replace the books, which I adore. Don’t let the pigeon drive the bus, ios app is awesome. Exactly what I want in a kids app.
- mathgeek 9y agoAn oldie but goodie is "My Father's Dragon" which has three books that you can get in a single binding.
- crooked-v 9y agoThe Hobbit, once they're old enough to get into it (and to handle the scary parts). It literally started out as Tolkien's bedtime stories.
- psadri 9y agoWhere the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin.
- exolymph 9y agoI enjoyed My Father's Dragon so much! Also the Little House on the Prairie books, and then when she's a little older, everything by Tamara Pierce.
- procinct 9y agoAnything by Bill Peet is amazing.
- straws 9y agoSwimming along, sometimes at great speed, sometimes slowly and leisurely, sometimes resting and exchanging ideas, sometimes stopping to sleep, it took them a week to reach Amos's home shore. During that time, they developed a deep admiration for one another. Boris admired the delicacy, the quivering daintiness, the light touch, the small voice, the gemlike radiance of the mouse. Amos admired the bulk, the grandeur, the power, the purpose, the rich voice, and the abounding friendliness of the whale. It doesn't get much better than William Steig — all of his books give kids the tools and analogs to confront complex emotions and overcome fears. Amos and Boris is my favorite, The Real Thief is excellent if they're a little older.
- tomjohnson3 9y agoMy daughter (now 4) loves: Poor Louie; Rosie Revere Engineer; Ada Twist Scientist; Iggy Peck Architect; Elephant & Piggie books; Llama Llama books; Rory the dinosaur books; ...and because she loves the shows, she asks for: PJ Masks books; Paw Patrol books.
- deckiedan 9y agoMy parents read to my brother and I up until I left home at 18. By then it was more so that we didn't all (parents included) squabble about who got to read the new books first. My dad read the Swallows and Amazons series to us, then a bit later the Hornblower series, also the Redwall series, the Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings, Treasure Island, Kidnapped, a few Dickens, Robinson Crusoe, all Narnia, possibly a couple of Shakespear. A bunch of classic Sci-Fi: Day of the Triffids, the Foundation series, etc. My mum read first quite a lot of Enid Blighton (Famous 5, Secret 7, magic faraway tree, etc)(really dated now), a few of the 'Chalet School' books (I got bored of those though my brother read the rest to himself), Agatha Christie, Jane Austin, Jane Eire, Don Camilo, Adrian Plass, Harry Potter, an Abridged Narnia and Abridged Lord of the Rings when we were younger (I think she just skipped the scary parts), Roald Dahl and Dr. Seuss (our 3 year old loves them now), Katie Morag (lovely gentle stories), Dick King Smith, Alexander McCall-Smith has a few great calm fun fiction for kids (The Perfect Hamburger, for instance), Treasures of the Snow, Paddington, E.Nesbit, the Princess and Curdie et al, The Secret Garden, Dogger, the Story of Ping (AFTER you read it, check the amazon reviews), Politically Correct BedTime Stories ... My wife and I are now reading (for the second time) through David Eddings' 'The Belgariad' together. I grew up reading those, although my parents never read them out loud, I dunno why. They work great out loud, but are definately for older readers. Teenagers or so. Kind of obvious plot - but the characters are so much fun to read, and it's a predicatable enjoyable journey. Other older teenager series to read might include Ted Dekker's the Circle, Tamora Pierce, some of Anne McCaffery (depending how comfortable you are reading stories which include sex - maybe read them yourself first), Eragon (don't watch the movie though), Stephen Lawhead's various serieses, the Empryion one is a good start. Not too long, nor too heavy. Some John Grisham (The Street Lawyer is EXCELLENT.) I'd recommend all of the above to get started :-)
- bcbrown 9y ago> the Swallows and Amazons series Wait, that was a series? I vividly remember reading that book growing up, but I never knew there were more. I know what I'm going to be reading this summer!
- balls187 9y agoThe Phantom Tollbooth. The greatest book ever written.
- noufalibrahim 9y agoMy daughter, who is 9 now, adores anything by Roald Dahl. I've read most of the famous ones to her. It's super fun when you try to read his nonsense words. Always a laugh. I'm trying to go towards abridged classics. I've read most of Jules Verne to her and some Stevenson (Kidnapped was one of her favourites). She also enjoyed the Milnes original Winne the Pooh (I'll never forgive Disney for destroying it), Gaiman's Coraline and Fortunately the milk. The classics like E.B. Whites Charlottes Web and Stuart Little were fun too. We also went through a childrens adaptation of the Arabian Nights hauntingly illustrated by Victor Ambrus. I heard that the Woz used to read Tom Swift Jr. books to his kids so I read one of those to my daughter. It felt a little cheesy and dated (eg. Asian people were called Orientals) but she enjoyed it. I also read The Water Babies (by Rev. Charles Kingley) to her. It was a weird book but she seemed to enjoy it. The only one she asked me to stop reading to her was "The Borrowers" by Mary Norton. The only thing where she preferred the animation over the book. Right now, we're reading Swallows and Amazons. She also enjoys reading a lot by herself. Her latest craze was Astrid Lingdren and right now, she's reading Mrs. Frisby and the rats of NIMH. My son, who's 5 now and can't read fluently yet, enjoys graphic novels. I read at lot of simple "Thomas the Tank engine" stories to him. He also enjoys the "From the black lagoon" series of books as well as stuff from Dr. Seuss and other kids books like the Gruffalo series. One of his favourites are the books by Quentin Blake (Mrs. Armitage, Patrick, Angelo etc.). Interestingly, I read Kidnapped to my daughter while he (unknowingly) listened on and later he was able to recount some of the important scenes in the book quite well. He knew about Alan Breck and how he fought in the ship and what not. That was a bit of a wow moment for me. I also love reading poetry to them. Even singing it if I can. The Random House book of poetry for children edited by Jack Prelutsky. Both of them love it and enjoy reciting stuff by themselves. They even have a few "favourite poems". I think one of the responsibilities of a parent, especially in the younger years, is to curate the world that reaches their children. You have to expose them to the best of humanity so that they grow up that way and when they encounter the failings, they'll know how belong human potential it is. The humanities are a wonderful way of doing this and I emphasise them a lot more in my household than the sciences.
- davedx 9y agoSome of the favourites in our house: Hooray for Fish The Hobyahs Don't Wake Up the Tiger Katinka's Tail All the Harry the Dog books Dumbo's African Adventure The Very Hungry Caterpillar A New House for Mouse Many of the Disney books - they can be very hit and miss but some have been quite popular, like the Dumbo book above, Beauty and the Beast, Winnie the Poeh, and a few others. Reading to our kids at bedtime is one of my favourite times too :)
- dubya 9y agoI don't think there are any "must-reads", but I'll recommend the Ramona series by Beverly Cleary as fantastic read-alouds for kids age five or older. My older child (12 now) and I really enjoyed Bill Bryson's "Made in America" and "A short history of nearly everything".
- truculation 9y agoFine, as long as you accept that the main purpose of reading a story aloud is to relax and enjoy the story together rather than to develop skills. Just as the main purpose of lego and similar toys is not to develop 'hand-eye coordination' but rather to build cool stuff. (Whatever claims are advertised on the packaging.) This isn't a trivial point. If you read stories with the intention of fostering skill development you will neither inculcate skills nor get the most out of those stories. >parenting coach Ha. The idea that there exist professional parents who explictly know what they are doing (with footnotes and sources) is a major conceit in our present culture.
- sjg007 9y agoWell I mean teachers are kind of professional parents in that they teach kids new skills.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Pulcinella 9y agoNo no no! I am not your child’s parent! You are! I will do my best to be your child’s teacher and teach them and be a positive influence in their life, but I am definitely not their parent.
- milesvp 9y agoSo much this! I have a friend who teaches special needs children. She is amazing at her job. She can handle all the worst behaving kids like you wouldn't believe. Her experience is always that the biggest problem for many (most?) of her students with behavioral problems is, when she meets their parents, it's clear they have no boundaries, and the children get away with murder at home. So much of being a parent is saying no, and having clear consequences when behavior is inappropriate. I can feel my pre frontal cortex getting exhausted when I watch my children, it's just so clear that theirs has yet to develop, and I need to be their behavior regulator.
- sixhobbits 9y agoStudies which divide people into two groups and do "$THING_WITH_LIKELY_POSITIVE_EFFECT" on one group and nothing on the other group are not very interesting or convincing IMO. Normally, unless done really badly, initiatives like the one described here will have a significant positive effect. More interesting studies follow the pattern of comparing different potential initiatives, or even better, comparing a surprising initiative with an obvious one. E.g. some studies have indicated that giving school children chess coaching improves their maths scores more than extra maths lessons. That said, I'm hugely grateful to my parents for being very involved in reading aloud and telling stories while I was young. I'm convinced without the results of this study that there was a huge positive effect.
- thisisnotmyname 9y agoThis study also claims to have shown a dosage effect.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- andrei_says_ 9y agoWould be nice to have a study on giving agenda-free positive undivided attention as a baseline and then variations with different activities.
- taneq 9y agoAgreed. Kids need unstructured time too!
- bllguo 9y agowhat? studies with control groups aren't interesting or convincing? this seems like a long-winded way of saying "obviously this was true", which is a ridiculous attitude towards science (social science in particular)
- jacobolus 9y ago
- baxtr 9y agoIt’s sad that nowadays every second needs to be productive. The main benefit is to have a nice, focused time (device-free) with your kid.
- darepublic 9y agomust free them from the clutches of paw patrol, little baby bum and peppa pig
- Zigurd 9y agoReading aloud is entertainment. It makes going to bed palatable and if you can master the pronunciation of the patois in the Joel Chandler Harris Br'er Rabbit books, little kids find dad talking that way totally hilarious.
- tlogan 9y agoWhy is this an article at all? I also believe that playing video games with your kids has benefits. Also throwing a ball. Even kicking the ball with kids (btw, do not do that with baseball ball - lesson learned). Or just walking and talking about shit (sometimes literally). I'm just sarcastic here (and angry on myself): I did many mistakes of not being around for my first kid but I'm trying to fix up with second and third. Please do listen to the old guy: spent time with your kids. Period.
- kerbalspacepro 9y agoI think that this is an article, because if children are read to they will be more literate, and then when they grow up their comments on the Internet will make more sense.
- SystemOut 9y agoThere have been multiple and ongoing studies that show reading to your child helps develop multiple parts of the brain, including auditory processing capabilities that are essential to early reading development. The diversity of words matter, even the positive nature as opposed to negative tone of words matters. https://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/word-gap-speak-more-words-to-your-preschooler-daily/ https://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/word-gap-speak-more... is one article that discusses some options but the original study can be found here: http://www.aft.org//sites/default/files/periodicals/TheEarlyCatastrophe.pdf http://www.aft.org//sites/default/files/periodicals/TheEarly... There have been follow on studies discussed here https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/04/22/key-to-vocabulary-gap-is-quality-of.html https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/04/22/key-to-vocabul... That show it also has to do with the diversity of words, and even their tone (the positive vs negative) that is a key driver towards how well they engage and grow.
- tboyd47 9y agoJust anecdotally, reading is the most powerfully positive shared experience I have with my kids, and we do everything together. We paint pictures, play outside, eat dinner, watch movies, play video games together, etc. But reading is different; when I read to them, they're quiet, they're well-behaved. They are really paying attention. It's not the activity they enjoy the most, and it's not proactively educational (at least not in the sense that I'm forcing numbers and letters down their throat), but it just seems to turn them into a different sort of kid for a few moments.
- lowken10 9y agoI just want to share my story. My son always seemed to be behind his classmates. He's a bright, articulate, has an excellent spoken vocabulary, and a has wonderful sense of humor. He just always seemed to struggle in school through the early elementary years. My son especially struggled with reading. In an effort to help him with reading, I spent huge amounts of time forcing him to read different books. I used Anki to help him memorize difficult words. I did help him, but by the fourth grade he was still behind his classmates Everything changed one day when I decided to back off and instead read to him (and my daughter) every night for pleasure. I stopped asking to read part of the book. I tried different books and quickly my son and daughter started to enjoy the nighttime ritual of being read to. About half way through Roald Dahl's book the BFG, something clicked in my fourth grade son. He started reading the BFG on his own. Then he started to read during school downtime. When I'm driving him somewhere he is often now reading books in the backseat instead of playing games on his iPad. My point is reading fun books to your children can help them fall in love with reading and thus make them want to read. If I could give any advice to new parents is to read to your children every night (maybe take weekends off :-) ) and try and just have fun reading interesting stories to them. Hopefully my son has found a lifelong love of reading, which will serve him well.
- randomwhatever 9y agoDon't take weekends off ) Really. Read to them every night in bed! It is an amazing bonding experience. Read fun books for both of you. I don't think you will have anything that you will regret less in your life!
- MrTortoise 8y agoTldr