The benefits of children books

Reading books! It's one of the most beneficial activities for language development.

The benefits? There are many:

• improves listening skills
• works on memory and concentration
• exposes children to the written word
• helps distinguish fantasy from reality
• develops vocabulary (children discover words outside their everyday life)
• improves reasoning and critical thinking.

It's an inexpensive activity that's well worth adding to your routine!

And here are a few tips to maximize the use of books:

- When you're reading, you can emphasize and lengthen words - "This tree was BIG and had looooooong branches".

- When you're reading, you can explain words with the help of illustrations - "The maple is the tree that makes maple syrup. It has leaves like this".

- When you're reading, you can replace one word with another - "In autumn, maple leaves become colorful - full of colors (red, yellow, orange)".

- When you're reading, you can make connections with everyday life and real objects - "When we were at the park this morning, there were leaves on the ground. Do you think we saw maple leaves?" - "Come on, I'll show you. Dad hid some maple leaves in the dictionary."

- When you're reading, you can make connections between words - "Maples are the trees that produce maple sirup. You see, in the word maple sirup, there's the word maple".

When you're reading, don't forget to have fun: gesticulate, step out of the frame, do voices for each character, let the child tell his or her version...