Posted by Ideal Baby to Kid Tips

A child’s brain is a sponge, absorbing as much information as possible while she explores the new and fascinating world around her. Reading to your child even as early as infancy can help your child develop in more ways than you could ever have imagined!

Speech Development

When your baby hears your voice, she wants to mimic you. She wants to figure out how to talk, and by listening to you, and watching you read, she learns to make the sounds you make and put meaning to them.

Character Development

There’s a reason your child pulls out the same book for you to read to her every night. You’ve read this book every night for the past three years, but it never gets old to your little one. Why? She’s identified with one of the characters in some way, chosen a hero or heroine that she wants to be like, that she feels understands her in some way. Every time you read this book to her, she finds something new about it. She can recite it to you verbatim while you read, even if she isn’t exactly “reading” it. And that makes her proud. She’s saying, “That’s me. I’m that character. I’d like to be like that.” Your child identifies with that character on some emotional level, and she wants to share it with you. It’s the only way she knows how to communicate it in her tender mind and heart.

Emotional Development

When your child identifies with a character in a book, it helps with her emotional development. She learns to feel empathy for her favorite characters and will eventually help her to learn to feel empathy for people in real life, teaching her the importance of how to treat others as she grows.

Critically Acclaimed Bedtime Stories for Young Children:

Goodnight, Moon – Margaret Wise Brown and Pat Hancock, 1947

The Giving Tree – Shel Silverstein, 1964

Where the Wild Things Are – Maurice Sandak, 1963

Harold and the Purple Crayon – Crockett Johnson, 1955

And for those who are a bit older:

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll, 1865

The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943

Charlotte’s Web – E.B. White, 1952

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – L. Frank Baum, 1900

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (from The Chronicles of Narnia) – C.S. Lewis, 1950

The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1910

Open a new world for your child to explore with these wonderful, meaningful, and thoughtful stories, and watch your child grow into a beautiful little human being.