Share stories and boost your child's brain development
3 August 2020 | State Library of Queensland
Research on early literacy says that reading with your child every day may be the most important thing you can do to support their future ability to read and write.
Sharing stories with your 0-5 year old boosts their vocabularies, helps them to get to know the rhythms of language and introduces them to concepts related to reading and print.
Sharing stories every day has many wonderful benefits for your child.
Sharing stories often with young children has also been shown to lead to improved reading skills in children in Grade 3. It was also shown to improve numeracy skills in children in this age group.
It's never too early or too late to start. You can read to your baby right from birth or start introducing special shared reading time with your toddler or pre-schooler.
You don't need to read all the way to the end, which can be tricky with wriggly toddlers. Try talking about the pictures or acting out favourite stories.
Children will love hearing the same stories over and over and this is great for their language development.
Your local library or Indigenous Knowledge Centre has lots of books for children and it's free to join.
Watch a Story Time session online
Our Story Time sessions are fun and also have great tips for families on new ways to share stories with children.
You can also join other families for a free Story Time, Baby Play or Rhyme Time session at your local library or Indigenous Knowledge Centre.
Resources
Research snapshot. (2012). Let's Read, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute
Reading to young children: a head-start in life. (2012). University of Melbourne and the Department of Education and Early Childhood (Victoria)
Children's early home learning environment and learning outcomes in the early years of school. (2014) Australian Institute of Family Studies
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