7 Ways That Reading Changes Your Child

Spending 15 minutes a day with your child reading a single story can change your child. Everything from cognitive skills, comprehension in all areas, behaviour, focus, and perspective on life.

This isn’t some click bait article. Through this blog post, I will link some wonderful studies that lead me to these points.

“Not only will it affect your child’s cognitive skills, reading skills, comprehending numbers and literacy, but also emotional development.”
“Reading to children at a young age has a direct causal effect on their schooling outcomes, regardless of their family background and home environment. Children were able to sit, focus, and truly comprehend the information that they were being taught in their classroom.”
“Reading to your child 3-5 times a week has the same affect as being 6 months older.”
“Reading 6-7 times a week has the same effect as being 12 month older.”
“Your child will learn how to describe their feelings, their character, and overall, it enables them to dictate and control their behaviours when experiencing sadness and anger.”
Children under 5 who are played with and read to by their own parents had a large impact on their perspective of life and their behaviour.
Engaging with your children was proven to decrease the amount of issues within children’s negative behaviour, increase the amount of happiness in their life, and thus the parents enjoyed their children more.

The 30 Million Word Gap was a study done in 1992 that compared how many words children in “high class” (professional), “middle class” (working), and welfare status heard per waking minute.

Here is a excerpt from the article:

“They found that the average child in a professional family hears 2,153 words per waking hour, the average child in a working-class family hears 1,251 words per hour, and an average child in a welfare family only 616 words per hour. Extrapolating, they stated that, "in four years, an average child in a professional family would accumulate experience with almost 45 million words, an average child in a working-class family 26 million words, and an average child in a welfare family 13 million words."

That truly put things into perspective for me, and encouraged me to read even more! Although this is a study on how reading changes your child, I truly do think it was worth mentioning the difference in socioeconomic status and the gap of words children hear!

Based on these calculations from Ohio State University, here’s how many words kids would have heard by the time they were 5 years old:
- Never read to: 4,662 words;
- 1-2 times per week: 63,570 words;
- 3-5 times per week: 169,520 words;
- daily, 296,660 words: and
- five books a day: 1,483,300 words.
South Sound Reading established that 85 - 90 percent of brain growth occurs in the first five years of life. This affects not only cognitive skills, reading skills, comprehending numbers and literacy, but also emotional development. I was shocked how much the brain grows in the first few years of life, considering it doesn't seem like that window of time would affect their entire being so profoundly!
There was a study done that you can check out here about the frequency of reading to children at a young age has a direct causal effect on their schooling outcomes, regardless of their family background and home environment. Children were able to sit, focus, and truly comprehend the information that they were being taught in their classroom.
The biggest part I took away from the study was that reading to your child 3-5 times a week has the same affect as being 6 months older; while reading 6-7 times a week has the same effect as being 12 month older.

After reading some of these studies, I started to doubt my parenting! I was ashamed how long we would go between our reading streaks. Some weeks were truly astonishing with how much we reading we did, and sometimes we would have a stretch where I would have to think when we picked a book up last.

“Whenever you feel discouraged, just remember, you are the centre of the universe to those tiny humans you made from scratch. You’re kind of a big deal!”

Reading Rockets had the sweetest message for any mamas who have endured the same guilt feeling as me:

“Although the life of a parent is often hectic, you should try to read with your child at least once a day at a regularly scheduled time. But don't be discouraged if you skip a day or don't always keep to your schedule. Just read to your child as often as you possibly can. At just a few months of age, an infant can look at pictures, listen to your voice, and point to objects on cardboard pages.”

New York Times did a study on children reading and playing with their parents and it concluded that children had an opportunity to truly reflect and understand who they were as people. Children, under 5, were able to learn how to describe their feelings, their character, and overall, it enables them to dictate and control their behaviours when experiencing sadness and anger.
We learned in that study that children under 5 who are played with and read to by their own parents had a large impact on their perspective of life and their behaviour. It had nothing to do with previous background information, income status, but strictly on play and reading time. They ensured there was a mix in all factors!
In fact, engaging with your children was proven to decrease the amount of issues within children’s negative behaviour, increase the amount of happiness in their life, and thus the parents enjoyed their children more. This created an equal positive outlook on their relationship!

Learning from home has created a bond with my children that has become strengthened. I we have had to learn more about each other and deepen our understanding about each other, which truly have been an amazing gift.

If you haven’t already taken the opportunity to check out my entire homeschool section, I truly feel like you would fall in love with all the free content I have provided! I know that times are difficult, and wanting to save money is always an amazing plus!

Did you know…

I have an entire article on 60+ free homeschool resources!

I wanted to fill your feeling of “lost” on the topic of homeschooling, and provide resources from curriculum for all ages, kindergarten worksheets, elementary resources, middle school resources, high school resources, homeschooling planners, faith building worksheets, parenting resources, and even moms on YouTube who share their stories.