I had to talk to a great group of girls (and one guy) about the importance of reading to your kids. It's a high school dedicated to pregnant teenagers and new teenager moms. It was for Dr. Seuss' birthday (which I was late for because of illness), so today was my make up day. I read them "Are You My Mother" and then gave a little speech. I'm a terrible public speaker, but here's what I had to say to them. And reading to your baby is so very important.
Keep in mind that this was an informal, casual speech, so some of my facts, if they were really scientific-y or long winded, I just copied and pasted into my paper. It wasn't for class or credit or money, so there's no plagiarism. I've sited all my sources at the bottom, but didn't use any MLA or ALA formatting. :) Enjoy!
Reading to your child
It’s an amazing thing, having a baby and becoming a mom. We
helped create another living being. We carried them and nurtured them for 9
months. We went through child birth to bring them into this world. And in the
first second we meet this precious little human, we are filled with an
unparalleled level of love for someone we’ve just only met. Instantly, we would
do anything for them. If we needed to, we would die for them.
So, if we would be willing to go so far as to die for our
little ones, to make their lives better, wouldn't it make sense that we would
also want to do something as simple and easy as reading to them to offer them
the best advantage in their lives? It seems like reading would be too simple,
too easy to make that big of a difference. But you’d be surprised.
I was excited when I was asked to come here and talk to you
about the importance of reading to children because I believe so strongly in it
and it is so important. I am a voracious reader. And I’m a writer. I review
books for the Idaho Statesman and various publishers. I am passionate about
reading and books and how important it is to us as individuals and our culture.
To sit down with a book (or ereader) in my hand and see it on the page, to
notice how beautifully something can be expressed by another mind, as a change
from hearing it on a tape or see it on the big screen actually involves more of
the mind.
So when I had my first baby, I wanted to make sure she loved
books as much as I did. I read to her in the womb, I read to her in the middle
of the night when she was a newborn and I was trying to get her to sleep. I
read to her now, and she reads to us. It’s true that genes play a part in how
smart your child will be, but genes set up the general wiring of their brain, the
nurturing your child gets, reading and time, fine tune those connections.
It’s easy to just say, “Read to your child, it helps them
develop and it is so important”, but I think that a better understanding of our
child’s brains will help us full appreciate the importance of that claim.
How much of your
child’s brain, do you think, is developed by the age of 3? How about 5? 80%
and 90% of your child’s brain is developed by that young age, and this time is known
as their critical learning years, and a vital window for language-learning
tends to close at around 5. So it makes sense to make the most out of it. And
think about how much they’ve accomplished from the time they’re born – unable
to control their bodily functions or focus on anything to running around,
cracking jokes, and giving us gray hairs. There is so much that happens!
There are many theories of what helps to stimulate a baby’s
brain and make them “smarter”, reading, playing classical music, etc. What are some of the things you have heard?
However, those are just theories. The only proven stimulation is language. Babies that are read to and talked
to, engaged with, show more advanced linguistic skills, mathematical skills,
and cognitive abilities than babies that are not. It’s also been shown that
children score better on standardized test over those who were not read to.
This is the easiest and best way to make the most of their critical
brain-building & development years.
As babies, each of us is born with the potential to learn
language. Our brains are programmed to recognize human speech, to distinguish
subtle differences between individual speech sounds, and to put words and
meaning together. But, the particular language each child masters, the size of
his vocabulary, is dependent upon the environment in which he is raised--that
is, the thousands of hours he has spent (beginning even before birth) listening
and speaking to others. We have the responsibility and the opportunity and the
duty to teach our children to read; to unlock that language learning potential.
The brain is an incredible organ. Our brain is not a fixed
structure. It’s development is what’s known as “activity-dependent”, meaning
that the electrical activity in every circuit shapes the way that circuit is
put together. Every experience we have, everything we learn creates folds and
circuits. The more we experience, the stronger they become. Did you know it
“prunes” itself? Just like we would prune a rose bush – cutting away the dead,
or withering, of just too small areas, the brain may drop away certain neural
circuits that are rarely excited or stimulated. That makes sense, right? Think
about cramming for a test. We learn all this information, never use it again,
and then it’s gone. The opposite is also true, neural circuits that are
regularly stimulated are strengthened and they grow.
And while "pruning," may sound harsh, it is
generally a good thing. It streamlines children's neural processing, making the
remaining circuits work more quickly and efficiently. Without synaptic pruning,
children wouldn't be able to walk, talk, or even see properly. But in the end,
we want to make sure that the brain is pruning the areas that don’t need to be
there, rather than pruning the areas that are malnourished. So, reading and
talking to your child has the power to change the actual structure of the
brain, just like not reading or
talking to your child will do it in reverse.
So much comes from the early years regarding a child’s
language skills. Not only do their critical years for language-learning tend to
be less absorbent after the age 5, but certain skills, including grammar and
the ability to understand and notice and produce individual speech sounds, are
more sensitive than others to a child’s experience with language in the first
few years of life.
Going back to the action of the brain pruning itself, there
is a theory that there is a period of synaptic excess in the brain: between
infancy and the early grade school years, the brain actually over-produces
connections--about 50 percent more than will be preserved in adulthood. During
the critical period, a child's experience--sensory, motor, emotional, and
intellectual--determines which of these synapses will be preserved, through
pruning of the least useful connections. In this way, each child's brain
becomes better tuned to meet the challenges of his or her particular
environment. So we want to make sure the right things are being pruned.
So, now that we know more about the brain, how it functions,
when it learns, and so on, what would we say are some of the benefits of
reading to your child? (pause for answers?)
- ·
Good bonding experience for you and your child.
Not only are you sitting and cuddling, but a baby would rather listen to you
talk or sing to them than anything else.
- ·
How many
of you read to your child? What are some things you notice that your baby does
when you read to them? Stimulates their brain, improves their listening
skills, and gives them an interest in sounds. Brain development is so heavily
dependent on early experiences.
- ·
When we read to Hailee, we run our fingers under
the words so that she can connect that those funny looking squiggles mean
something, have sound, have images. And as a result…..give examles of Hailee
- ·
Starts introducing different objects and
concepts and ideas to them in a fun way
- ·
Builds strong memory, listening, and vocab
skills, being spoken to a lot, children at age of three scored higher on
standard tests than other kids whose parents didn’t
- ·
True or
false? By the time your little one is 1, they will have learned all of the
sounds they need for talking. True
So, the more you talk to them and read to them and sing to them, the more words
they’ll have in their vocabulary and the easier it will be for them to talk
- ·
Kids who have parents that read to them
regularly, have a much better vocab by the age of two than others, which will
let them communicate better; and babies that were read to as newborns have
better math skills
- ·
We never read to our child in a boring way. We
use emotion, and theater expression, which teaches our kids social and
emotional development. And babies are active readers, pointing, looking,
laughing mimicking, asking and answering questions – which promotes social
development and thinking skills
- ·
Most importantly, instills the love of reading
and of books.
It has been such an honor to come and speak with you ladies,
today. You have not chosen an easy path, but it is the most noble of paths and
it takes an astounding amount of courage to live it on a daily basis, and you
are to be applauded. The decision to go through with your pregnancy, to
continue with your education and schooling and holding down a job while raising
your child--and the majority of you are probably single mothers—is not the
easiest one. You will be richly blessed and rewarded for the time and love you
are putting into these little lives that have been entrusted to you. My mom was
a single mom raising twins, and I saw every day the amount of love she had for
us in the sacrifices that she made. So keep doing what you’re doing, keep
working hard and bettering yourselves and doing the best for your children.
Read to them and love on them and kiss them. Cherish every moment because it
goes too fast and none of us knows how long it will last. Give them the moon and stars. Your child's
development is so very important. Start their lives in the right
direction. There's no greater gift.
Thank you.
Sources:
--Me
