Gone are the days when we would gather around the fireplace to share and listen to stories. Modernization has meant that families stay away from each other. The advent of the mobile phone and television have meant that we spend a lot of time on these devices. The result is that we are slowly losing the tradition of storytelling and the last thing our children remember as they drift to bed is the flashing lights of the television or the constant beeping of your phone as you chat on Whatsapp.
Stories have the power of entertaining, educating, preserving and transmitting important social norms, values and beliefs of a people. For thousands of years, parents have told stories to their children. Storytelling is a tradition of great importance that every parent should be doing. Reading stories to your child when they go to bed is not only relaxing and fun, but also important in helping you to get closer to your child.
Reading together with your child is the foundation for development of reading and creativity. Research shows that parent who read together with their children create early experiences with books. This enables children to absorb rhythms, patterns of language, and imitate their gestures and language while reading and sharing stories. Exposing your child to books and bedtime stories enables them to learn pictures and words, which serve as the building blocks for literacy. Telling stories from books enables your child to interpret pictures, learn new words, build their vocabulary and familiarize with the rules of print, such as reading from front to back, left to right and top of page going downward while the book is held upright.
Bedtime stories provide opportunities for you to bond with your child and create lasting memories. Many older people tend to have childhood memories of the moments they spend with their parents and siblings. Reading a bedtime story enables you to connect with your child.The best memories are created when families gather together in close and intimate settings to share stories. When you create time for telling stories, your child will feel special and appreciated. Your child will appreciate this special moment and will forever look forward to your great stories as they drift off to sleep.
Bedtime stories offer the best way to spend quality and meaningful time with your child, especially after a busy day. Reading stories engages your child’s imagination, gives them something to dream about, calms them down, reduces their fears and relaxes their minds and muscles, enabling them to sleep peacefully. Moreover, bedtime stories provide the right moment for you to instill and nurture important values, morals and skills. The values include taking care of yourself, how to treat others and what is truly important in life. In addition, stories help you to teach important moral expectations, and provide explanations for complex issues of life for your child.
Stories enable you to establish a healthy routine for your child. Children value and appreciate routine activities, which gives them a sense of control over their lives. Make sure that every evening you sit with your child and share a story before they sleep. Put the remote aside, drop your phone (unless if you are reading from an app) and engage in meaningful conversations and discussions around books with your child.
Research shows that bedtime stories are important in enabling your child to learn new words, which plays a great role in fostering reading preparedness. Just imagine that by reading for only 20 minutes every day at home your child will hear about 1.8 million words per year and will have read about 851 hours by the time they are in 6th grade. Exposing your child to a text-rich environment with books, words and sound strengthens their brain muscles and improves mastery of the words, reading, comprehension and language of instruction. Listening to new words, their pronunciation and use in sentences equips the young minds, expands their vocabulary and prepares them to be successful readers and writers.
Have you started reading bedtime stories to your child yet? Start today!
To ensure all the stories are accessible to children, Storymoja offers exciting children storybooks on an android based Simulia Reading App in both English and Kiswahili, with a FREE subscription until 30th of April 2020. Once the app has downloaded and updated, these books will be accessible even while offline and therefore not needing internet connection.
Please join our bedtime stories programme by downloading Simulia on your android device. Follow us on Facebook (@storymojaafrica) and Twitter (@Storymoja) to listen in on our bedtime story readings, every day from 8:00 pm
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