Principal's Page

Kia Ora Koutou

 

As a follow-up to our Learning Conferences, one theme that came through was that families may be overlooking the value of our local community libraries.

 

Benefits of Reading for Young Children

Developing strong literacy skills helps prepare children not only for success in reading and writing but also in other academic fields. It also helps them become more able to interpret the world around them.

In an increasingly digital world, it’s crucial for us to keep our kids reading books for many reasons, including the following.

 

1. Increasing Empathy in Readers

Reading can increase empathy, helping them imagine others’ emotions and circumstances. Learning about different viewpoints or beliefs builds an understanding of culture and values outside of the reader’s experience. 

 

2. Improving Literacy Skills and Performance in Most Subjects

Reading enhances students’ ability to perform in multiple subjects, even when the reading isn’t specifically tied to that subject, such as mathematics. This effect is because reading helps children learn to take in, interpret, comprehend, and store information, improving their ability to handle new concepts and situations as they arise. 

 

3. Enhancing Communication Skills

Reading helps develop better communication skills in young language learners. As children read, they can expand their vocabulary by interacting with challenging words, and if they’ve selected the book themselves, they’re likely to try to understand the new words through context clues and phonics skills. 

 

4. Exercising and Expanding the Brain

Exercising the brain through reading can help readers interact with various parts of their minds. While reading is widely known as a left-brain activity — processing language and organization — metaphors and non-linguistic representations occur in the right brain. Because of this multi-dimensional crossover, exercising the brain is very important to develop connections between various regions.

 

5. Creating an Intrinsic Thirst for Knowledge

Reading opens so many doors for new exploration. With nonfiction books, there’s a clear pathway for readers to not only learn about interesting topics but also ask questions that require further reading or study. 

 

6. Providing Entertainment Value

With all the other benefits of play, it can be easy to forget that reading also provides a sense of entertainment for children. Getting kids hooked on reading at a young age is integral because they’ll become intrinsically motivated to continue their reading habits, which will naturally develop the other positive results that come with reading.

 

7. Reducing Stress

One of the most important and valuable aspects of reading is that it can help calm a reader experiencing stress. Helping students connect reading to a low-anxiety activity early in life can offer a powerful coping mechanism for dealing with stress later in life.

 


As always - if you have questions or concerns about anything school-related - email me at macash@mac.com, and I will get back to you asap.

 

Take care all -

 tofa soifua

noho ora mai

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ash Maindonald

Principal.