Nightly reading vs. iPad

I know many parents battle iPads before bed. But before there were iPads, there was nightly reading.

Nightly reading has tremendous benefits for your child, it…….

• Encourages Attention and Focus – In a recent poll by Common Sense Media, “77 percent of parents feel their children get distracted by their devices and don’t pay attention.” Reading requires attention and focus, so creating habits around nightly reading encourages these valuable academic skills.
• Improves Fluency – Reading aloud develops your child’s fluency, and listening to a story read aloud provides a model for what fluent reading sounds like. But it doesn’t have to be either-or. Try to gauge your child’s mood and energy, maybe one night you read aloud, another night you alternate, or even try paired reading where you read a page aloud to your child first, and then they read that same page.
• Expands Vocabulary – Reading deepens and broadens your child’s vocabulary. In the tech-age, your child’s chats and online gaming conversations often narrow his/her exposure to the language. Reading researcher Dr. Sally Shaywitz correlated how much time children spent reading to how many words they read. Children who spent 20 minutes a day reading outside of school had read 1.8 million words a year compared to children who read less than a minute with 8,000 words per year!
• Strengthens Imagination – Shared nightly reading gives your child an opportunity to think, question, and connect to worlds outside their present reality. Together you can visit magical settings, meet complex characters, and explore universal themes found in books.
• Deepens Comprehension – You can encourage your child’s critical thinking skills by asking questions about characters, plots, and themes found in books. These critical thinking skills like evaluating, inferring, analyzing, and synthesizing build powerful pathways in your child’s brain that can be applied across academic contexts.

Most importantly, nightly reading creates a bank of positive memories with your child that not only helps your child become a better reader but strengthens your relationship as well!

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