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The importance of reading to children before they go to bed is not known to most Nigerian mothers.
After a long day’s job, when parents finally get to hustle their kids to bed, they’d be too relieved to even think of reading a bedtime story. All that will be on their mind is how to have a quality “me” time.
But when you give your children their bath, brush their teeth and wear them their pyjamas, doing everything in a rush so you can go and watch your favourite show or have great sex with your husband, don’t forget to read a bedtime story to your kids.
Reading to your child from an early age helps you and your child bond. Your child will look forward to each night, and by doing that you are spending quality time with your child. You are also creating memories. As you read the stories, you can talk about the characters in the story, how the characters interact with one another, the moral lesson of the story, as well as any other important lessons and values that are shown in the story.
Research has shown that if you read a bedtime story to your child from when he is a toddler, this habit will increase the ability of the child to process words, allowing the brain to think about the next word in a story, or even what will happen next in the story. And this is a skill that will help them throughout their educational career.
By listening to the stories that you read, young children can see and hear important words, learn how to pronounce correctly, and expand their vocabularies.
It also helps your child pick new words when you are reading the book to him, he may ask questions like “mom, what does…mean?” When you do this every day, they are learning new words each day. It will also help them develop the passion for reading and thinking.
Reading a bedtime story to your children will help your child become more aware of the world around him from an early age. And as they become aware of their world, they become more curious and open to learning.
Also, it helps them develop comprehension and logic skills and these are important for their communication process and the development of educational skills.
You are also sharpening the communication skills of your children by reading bedtime stories to them. Reading gives children a sense of confidence to communicate effectively with peers and everyone they come in contact with.
Children books are mostly filled with stories that teach important moral lessons and values. And by reading these books to them during bedtime, you are teaching them a lot of values, what is important in life, how to treat others, and how people should treat them. Reading bedtime stories to them is the best ways to explain to your kids what your values and expectations are in an interesting way.
Now you know bedtime stories are more than a waste of time and an ordinary interesting story. Start reading to your child from their toddler stage and when they are grown you’d be surprised the things they learned early will be of great use to them. Children’s books are not expensive, you can get them at bookstores.
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