How to find one hour per day for reading to a child

Nobody argues about the benefits of reading to children. But when it comes to reading to your child, most parents can only find time for a short reading of a fairy tale before bedtime. Of course, there are parents who read two or even three hours a day, but this is the exception rather than the rule.

Meanwhile, the benefits of reading for the intellectual development of the child are quite comparable with the benefits of long-term breastfeeding, developmental classes and vitamin complexes with polyunsaturated fatty acids. When reading to our children, we can see a direct correlation between how much time we spend on reading and how their vocabulary expands, their horizons broaden and their understanding of the world becomes more complete.

At first glance it seems that reading an hour a day for busy/nursing/working/having many children mothers is unrealistic, but with the right choice of literature and time to read, each mother can find one hour to read.

It is recommended to keep to the rule “three times a day for 20 minutes”. 20 minutes is perhaps the optimal time during which children are able to keep attention on the book, and parents to read, without thinking about the number of things that still need to be done.

Morning is a great time to read, because it is in the morning that the brain of a child is not yet loaded and perfectly perceives information. Morning poems are a great start to our day. Try to wake the child up with verses and you will see how kinder and more cheerful your morning will become!

What to read: poems about morning, about breakfast, about kindergarten, walks, clothes, about the weather and seasons, and what is currently relevant for you and your child.

Little tricks: In order to gain time in the morning, you can read those poems that you remember by heart. While you are preparing breakfast, you can give the child a book and voice poems from it. On the way to kindergarten in the car, you can turn on YouTube children’s songs from popular cartoons, audio fairy tales that the kid will be listening to.

When the kids, after playing in the playground or in the park, go to parents to talk or eat, you can offer a book to read. It’s so cool to read a couple of stories in the fresh air and enjoy some snacks together.

What to read: short stories and poems about nature and animals, stories about children. Choose short stories, because after having some rest, your child will soon want to rush off to play again.

Little tricks: you can read on the way to the playground — especially if your child is in the stroller — just give a book with large letters and a lot of illustrations to your child, so that you could see the text over the stroller while the child turns the pages. It would be easy for you to read some short stories and poems.

The simplest thing for parents is to devote some time to reading in the evening, for most families with children, evening reading is a part of the ritual for putting children to bed. You will be surprised by the results — even reading to the child only for 20 minutes before bedtime, you will notice that their speech will become more fluent, and the vocabulary — wider.

What to read: fairy tales, large books with colorful pictures on each page, stories about your favorite heroes of your childhood.

Little tricks: show to the child some short words using your finger, ask to remember how to spell a word. So you lay the foundation for independent reading in future.

Combining reading to the child with everyday activities, each mother can read more. Choose comfortable books for walks, learn poems together, read fairy tales and stories that are interesting both for children and adults, and then reading will become a pleasant activity not only for the child, but for you as well.

Reading together with Nicola!

The more you read, the faster your hero grows!

Related posts:

Given my background in financial analysis and strategy, I thought a natural next step as I hone my technical skills would be data analytics. Over the next few posts, I’ll highlight my progress as…

Help.com recently had a chance to catch up with Micah Solomon. Micah is a best selling author, Forbes contributor, customer service speaker, and consultant, who has been leading the charge in…

After the recent cold snap we’ve been contacted by numerous clients asking “Why am I finding moss on my patio and pathway?” When we’ve explained why they’ve asked us to check and clean their gutters…