Tag: Parents

10 Benefits that Highlight the Importance of Reading With Young Children

Benefits that highlight the importance of reading with young children

We all know that reading to our children is important. But did you know that toddlers and pre-schoolers who are read to every day have many advantages and benefits. Not only does reading enhance a child’s vocabulary, and to help them understand how to read and write, but reading aloud to children also helps them to understand different topics about the world and every day life. The importance of reading cannot be emphasised enough in young children and we as parents need to make reading a priority.

Below are some benefits and advantages that highlight the importance of reading.

Benefits of reading

  1. Reading to young children sets them up to succeed

The more you read to your children, the more knowledge they absorb, and knowledge is important in all aspects of life. There have many studies that show reading to babies and toddles gives them a head start and helps to prepare them for school later down the line. After all, reading with your children gives them the skills needed for when they start to read themselves.

It is important that children learn to follow words across the page from left to right, and turn pages which are pre-reading skills that benefit children and help them to become better readers later on. Children who enjoy reading not only do better in language and literacy subjects, but in all of the different subjects as well.

2.Reading develops language skills

While you may speak with your children every day, the vocabulary you use is often limited and repetitive. Reading books ensures that your child is exposed to vocabulary on different topics, which means they hear words or phrases which they may not hear otherwise in their day to day lives. The more words they know, the better. For children who speak more than one language, reading is an easy way to help their language skills and is important to develop their fluency.

3. Exposure to reading exercises your child’s brain

Reading to young children affects their brain activity and may just give them that boost they need to support and promote their early reading skills. Research shows that specific areas of the brain are affected when young children have reading exposure at home from an early age. These areas are critical for a child’s language development.

  1. Reading enhances a child’s concentration

While you may think it is useless reading to a toddler who wants to constantly turn pages, swap books, or throw them around altogether, reading with your little one is extremely important at this age. By consistently reading to your child every day, your child will learn to concentrate and sit still for longer periods of time, which can help later on when they go to school.

5.Reading together encourages a thirst for knowledge

Reading to your children leads to questions about the book and the information within. It gives you a chance to speak about what is happening and use this as a learning experience. It may also develop an interest in different cultures or languages. There is nothing better seeing a child who loves to learn.

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How to teach your child to love reading A range of books teaches children about different topics

6. A range of books teaches children about different topics

Providing your child with different types of books on different topics, or even in different languages for bilingual kids, gives them a wide range of information for them to learn. There are informative books on topics such as different animals, places or objects etc, and there are also different books to help teach children about important life skills such as sharing, being kind, and diversity. There are also some amazing personalized books which make great gifts

7.Reading develops a child’s imagination and creativity

One of the great benefits of reading with children is watching their growing imagination. When we really engage in a book we imagine what the characters are doing. We imagine the setting as reality. Seeing the excitement on a child’s eyes when they know what is going to be on the next page, or having them guess what is going to happen is one of the most amazing things to experience

8.Reading books with children helps to develop empathy

When a child can put himself into the story it helps them to develop empathy. They identify with characters, and they feel what they are feeling. Children begin to understand and relate to emotions.

9.Books are a form of entertainment

With so much technology these days, it is difficult not to get caught up in all the hype of it all. TV, Video games, smartphones and apps are popular among children. However, reading a good book that your child is interested in can be just as entertaining. With all of the negative effects of screen time, choosing a book that interests your child, and either reading it together or letting them flick through pages alone, is definitely a better option. One of the main benefits that highlights the importance of reading with babies and toddlers, is that they are more likely to choose a book to read for pleasure over another activity when they are bored

10.Reading together helps to create a bond

There’s nothing better than cuddling up to your little one and reading a book or a bedtime story together. Spending time with one another, reading, and talking, can bring parents closer to your children. For parents who work, or have a busy lifestyle, relaxing with your child and simply enjoying each other’s company while reading can be a great way for you both to wind down, relax, and bond.

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Why you should read bedtime stories every night

“Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.” — Emilie Buchwald

With so many benefits that highlight the importance of reading, we as parents need to prioritise reading in a child’s early years to help them to succeed later in life.

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Blogs as resources

Blogs:

The world of the internet offers a great variety of blogs and websites related to Bilingualism, although I have to say that one needs to be quite selective and critical when finding information:

Adam from Bilingual Monkeys
– Japanese, English

Ana from PreK12Plaza
– Spanish, Italian, English

Annabelle from The Piri-Piri Lexicon
– French, Portuguese, English, German

Audrey from Españolita…¡Sobre la Marcha!
– Spanish, English

Eowyn from On Raising Bilingual Children
– French, English, Dutch

Esther from Third Culture Mama
– French, English, (Mandarin Chinese)

 Galina from Raising a Trilingual Child

– Russian, English, Italian

Ilze from Let the Journey Begin
– German, Latvian, English

Jonathan from Dad’s The Way I Like It
– Welsh, English

Leanna from All Done Monkey
– Spanish, English

Maria from Trilingual Mama
– Spanish, French, English

Marianna from Bilingual Avenue
– Spanish, English, German

Olga from The European Mama
– Polish, German, Dutch

and Rita, from Multilingual Parenting
– Swedish, Punjabi, Finnish, English

 

Bilingual, biliterate and culturally aware children

https://www.anaelisamiranda.com/literacy

Becky Morales is an ESL and Spanish teacher. She’s an American mother of five bilingual and multicultural children and the founder of Kid World Citizen. She lives in Mexico with her family and loves connecting with teachers and parents on Facebook and Twitter.

Bilingual, biliterate and culturally aware children

Portuguese resources for little learners

http://www.thepiripirilexicon.com/2017/04/our-favourite-portuguese-resources-for.html

Finding resources for our little (or not so little) multilinguals can be quite a challenge. It is also something a lot of parents are always on the lookout for. I have put together a little list for Portuguese hoping to make your life a little easier.

Printable materials

As a mum, I love printables. You just look something up, download and can start using it straight away. Great for road trips to keep kids entertained too.  

IDEAIS E PALAVRAS sells simple printables to learn to read in (Brazilian) Portuguese. I like the fact that the words are written in cursive as well as printed characters.

Multicultural Kid Blogs also has a bunch of FREE PRINTABLES (often these include Portuguese).

Free Portuguese printables

Teachers pay Teachers also has some PORTUGUESE PRINTABLES. These tend to be for older kids but can be adapted for little ones.  We like those in particular to LEARN THE COLOURS.

And I have more PORTUGUESE PRINTABLES listed.

Online resources

The Instituto Camões has a selection of CHILDREN’S BOOKS available to read online for free. These are mostly about the history of Portugal but the lovely and clear accent of the Portuguese reader is ideal for young learners.

PORTUGUÊS MAIS PERTO is an initiative from the Portuguese government to allow young Portuguese chidlren living abroad to stay in touch with their culture and language. You have to pay to access the lessons but there are all kinds of levels and tons of resources.

Online bookstores 

There are so many places to buy books. I have focused here on a small selection that specialise in Portuguese-language books for children. Those I have selected also offer, for the most part, high quality authentic books and not just translations of English bestsellers.

My favourite online bookstore for Portuguese books for kids is MIÚDA BOOKS. They are based in the UK but ship worldwide and the selection of books is the best. They have many authentic books from small publishers and not just translations of English books. Highly recommended.

If you live in Germany, like us, OLA LIVRO is a great online store too. There are only Portuguese books but they only ship to Germany.

PLANETA TANGERINA is a Portuguese publisher with an online store. The selection of books is also of great quality.

KALANDRAKA is a multilingual project publishing books in Castilian Spanish, Galician, Catalan, Basque, Portuguese, Italian and English. Their Portuguese selection is definitely worth a look.

Small selection from ABC MULTICULTURAL in (Brazilian) Portuguese on AMAZON. Most are picture books for little ones.

Brasil em Mente is an association based in the USA promoting Portuguese as a heritage language. Their store has a decent selection of BOOKS IN PORTUGUESE as well as other very useful resources.

Finally, if you are looking for the usual bestsellers in Portuguese, WOOK is a good place to look as Amazon.pt does not exist.

You can find many other worldwide online bookstores in this past article of mine. Click on the image below.

http://www.thepiripirilexicon.com/2015/06/where-to-buy-bilingual-and-foreign.html

Learning to read

Kit Papagaois for teaching to read in Portuguese. You can also buy the kit on AMAZON.

ROSA ESTEVENS method. Downloadable PDFs (mostly free) for teaching to read and write (European) Portuguese.

Radio for kids

I discovered this by chance last year. A Portuguese radio just for kids! You can listen for free live or listen to recorded podcasts. The site also has lots of free and fun resources. RÁDIO MIÚDOS: A primeira rádio para crianças em português.

Book recommendations

Our favourite books for under 6 year olds include:

Ser Português: a really cute book about what it means to be Portuguese with beautiful illustrations. More info HERE.

We also like the bilingual books by Sheila Margaret Ward. A glimpse of Portuguese culture in English and Portuguese. You can find THE REVIEW HERE.

Here is our current selection:

Finally, AMAZON has a decent selection of bilingual books (which include Portuguese).

Music for Kids

Here are some of our favourite PORTUGUESE ALBUMS FOR KIDS.

Portuguese resources for little language learners
PIN me for later

Bonus resource
And, as always, I have to mention Love Your Lingo, whose LITTLE ALPHABET works so well in Portuguese and is such a unique product for little bilinguals. We love our new cursive poster.

Little Linguist Alphabet

I hope these have given you a few ideas or resources for little Portuguese learners in your life. I would love other suggestions. feel free to leave comments.

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This article was written as part of Bilingual Kidspot’s amazing round-up for 15+ LANGUAGE-SPECIFIC RESOURCE GUIDES FOR LITTLE BILINGUAL LEARNERS.

Language Resources for kids around the world

Why it’s okay for bilingual children to mix languages

https://theconversation.com/why-its-okay-for-bilingual-children-to-mix-languages-97448

by 

Lecturer in Japanese and Linguistics, York St John University

Few would consider mastering more than one language a bad idea. In fact, research points to a number of cognitive, economic and academic advantages in being bilingual.

Parents who speak different languages understand the family home is an important setting to learn both, and seek various ways to help their children thrive bilingually. One of the best-known approaches is the “one-parent-one-language” strategy (OPOL). Each parent uses one language when communicating with their child, so their offspring learn both languages simultaneously.

OPOL emphasises consistency – sticking to one language each – as key to its approach. But this creates the myth that mixing languages should always be avoided. My recent study, part of a new wave of multilingualism studies, would suggest this received wisdom is just that: a myth.

My research looked at Japanese-British families living in the UK with pre and early school-age children who were following a more-or-less strict OPOL language policy. I was particularly interested in examining the impact of OPOL in the family home – how does this unique language environment affect the way children use languages?

Most of the Japanese mothers who participated in my research were fluent in Japanese and English, while the fathers possessed an elementary grasp of Japanese. This made English the primary language of communication between the parents and outside the home. For this reason, the mothers were careful to carve out additional space for more sustained Japanese language learning with their children. In other words, this dedicated space for communicating in Japanese (the minority language) was time children would spend exclusively with their mother. This seemed to create a connection between “Japanese language” and “motherhood” in the children’s perception.

The benefits of a bilingual brain – Mia Nacamulli

It’s obvious that knowing more than one language can make certain things easier — like travelling or watching movies without subtitles. But are there other advantages to having a bilingual (or multilingual) brain? Mia Nacamulli details the three types of bilingual brains and shows how knowing more than one language keeps your brain healthy, complex and actively engaged. Lesson by Mia Nacamulli, animation by TED-Ed.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMmOLN5zBLY

Advice for parents of young children – Talking with your baby (Literacy Trust)

Arabic Talking with your baby

Bengali Talking with your baby

Chinese Talking with your baby

English Talking with your baby

English with space for translation Talking with your baby

Estonian Talking with your baby

French Talking with your baby

Gujarati Talking with your baby

Norwegian Talking with your baby

Polish Talking with your baby

Portuguese Talking with your baby

Punjabi Talking with your baby

Romanian Talking with your baby

Somali Talking with your baby

Swedish Talking with your baby

Tamil Talking with your baby

Turkish Talking with your baby

Urdu Talking with your baby

Welsh Talking with your baby

Advice for parents of young children – Talk to your baby in your own language (Literacy Trust)

Arabic Talk to your baby in your own language

Bengali Talk to your baby in your own language

Chinese Talk to your baby in your own language

English only Talk to your baby in your own language

English with space for translation Talk to your baby in your own language

Estonian Talk to your baby in your own language

French Talk to your baby in your own language

Gujarati Talk to your baby in your own language

Norwegian Talk to your baby in your own language

Polish Talk to your baby in your own language

Portuguese Talk to your baby in your own language

Punjabi Talk to your baby in your own language

Romanian Talk to your baby in your own language

Somali Talk to your baby in your own language

Swedish Talk to your baby in your own language

Tamil Talk to your baby in your own language

Turkish Talk to your baby in your own language

Urdu Talk to your baby in your own language

Welsh Talk to your baby in your own language

Advice for parents of young children – (Literacy Trust)

Arabic Sharing songs and rhymes

Bengali Sharing songs and rhymes

Chinese Sharing songs and rhymes

English Sharing songs and rhymes

English with space for translation Sharing songs and rhymes

Estonian Sharing songs and rhymes

French Sharing songs and rhymes

Gujarati Sharing songs and rhymes

Norwegian Sharing songs and rhymes

Polish Sharing songs and rhymes

Portuguese Sharing songs and rhymes

Punjabi Sharing songs and rhymes

Romanian Sharing songs and rhymes

Somali Sharing songs and rhymes

Swedish Sharing songs and rhymes

Tamil Sharing songs and rhymes

Turkish Sharing songs and rhymes

Urdu Sharing songs and rhymes

Welsh Sharing songs and rhymes

Advice for parents of young children – Sharing books with your baby (Literacy Trust)

Arabic Sharing books with your baby

Bengali Sharing books with your baby

Chinese Sharing books with your baby

English Sharing books with your baby

English with space for translation Sharing books with your baby

Estonian Sharing books with your baby

French Sharing books with your baby

Gujarati Sharing books with your baby

Norwegian Sharing books with your baby

Polish Sharing books with your baby

Portuguese Sharing books with your baby

Punjabi Sharing books with your baby

Romanian Sharing books with your baby

Somali Sharing books with your baby

Swedish Sharing books with your baby

Tamil Sharing books with your baby

Turkish Sharing books with your baby

Urdu Sharing books with your baby

Welsh Sharing books with your baby