Is there more to reading than simply words on a page?

Reading doesn’t boil down to introducing children to the sounds of letters and then combining that knowledge with the shape and names of letters.  It is the myriad of other learning that precedes this stage, which contribute to a child reading and loving books.

Babies start to distinguish and recognise sounds from 24 weeks in the womb – studies show that they are able to pick out their mother’s voice over the voices of other people within days of being born.  Years 1-4 see a child move from having no speech to being able to converse fluently – potentially in 3 to 4 different languages.  The need to encourage and nurture this rapid oral development continues throughout a child’s life – it doesn’t stop once a child is reading.

Activities that develop and play with sounds are of paramount importance to young children. The higher, happier pitch we naturally use with babies is done for a reason – it helps them to develop language and learn new words.    All the nursery rhymes we sing, the games we play when we change a baby’s nappy, putting into words what a baby is doing and telling them, describing the world around them all contribute not only to a child making sense of the world around them, but also to laying down the foundations for language and reading.

Talking skills and oral language development have a strong impact on reading success.  As parents we need to constantly look for ways to interact with our children – from having conversations with our newborns when we babble back to them, to making a conscious decision to read to them as often as we can. What better way to end the day than cuddling up and reading a much loved book? 

Helping to develop a love of reading is a gift we can bestow on our children.  Citing reading as a hobby should be up there with the known benefits of being out in nature, doing exercise or eating well.  It is a way to nourish our soul, to escape into another world, to fire up our imagination,  to learn, to understand about others as well as to relax and recharge in a world that is often too busy, too noisy and sometimes overwhelming.  Reading can be part of the resilience framework our children build inside them.   Being able to read builds up self-belief and confidence – essential tools we all need throughout life. 

In our latest collaboration with Anne Cowley Education and Anna Culwick, we are looking at unpicking some of the fundamental building blocks of learning to read as well as looking at practical ways of supporting and encouraging our children as they embark on this journey.

If you are looking for an informed, practical way of supporting your child as they start out on the adventure of reading, this is the course for you!  The workshop is aimed at parents/guardians with children between the ages of 0-6 years of age. We have deliberately kept it to a maximum of 10 people.

Our free, informal workshop is being held on:

Wednesday 16th November 2022 between 10am and noon

At:

The Garden Apartment, 8 The Paragon, Bath BA1 5LX

Booking essential – Sign up at www.theparentcollaborative.co.uk/events