Why reading to your child is vital

Children love books and will respond to them from an early age if you read together, says Nyana Kakoma, a blogger, publisher and director of Sooo Many Stories.

Kakoma, however, says one does not have to wait for the child to grow up to read to them. One can start reading to their baby even before they are born.

"You can read to your unborn baby while you are pregnant. It feels as if the babies do not understand, but they do," she says, and quickly explains that this creates an emotional bonding experience and a wonderful way for them to get used to your voice.

Milly Nakate, a tutor at Primary Teachers College in Nkozi, says the earlier a child is exposed to reading the better.

Nakate is quick adds that children who stay with teachers or are taken to early learning centres tend to talk faster because through interaction with their peers, they learn social skills at an early age, including necessary concepts for early reading. She says even just looking at a book is an engaging activity.

If a child is used to being read to by a parent and they look at the pictures while listening, they quickly learn to associate the written symbols on the page with familiar words," Nakate says.

However, she advises to start with pre-reading activities, such as reciting poems, rhymes and singing. When children listen to the songs and rhymes they acquire the concept of vocabulary and get meaning out of them.

"Allow them listen to the sounds in the environment which will help them when they start reading to build their vocabulary," Nakate says.

She adds this also enables them to learn the phonology of a language; how words are joined to construct sentences. She says children should be talked and read to in a local language as it helps them acquire a wide of vocabulary in the local language.

Additionally, taking the children for a walk to see different things is another good pre-reading activity worth exploring. "Whatever the child sees or is exposed to is registered in the brain as a schema; kind of pictures stored in the brain are later associated with reading as well as numeracy, Nakate explains Aside, playing with others also stimulates their brain before they are introduced to letter sound and reading.

Plenty of toys to play with, for example, board books, fitting a jigsaw puzzle, gives them pre-reading activities Why reading to your child is vital and by the time the child starts to attempt reading, they have been exposed to shapes and pictures. 

The reading stage

Kakoma says for the really young ones, the more pictures they are exposed to, the faster they learn and the brighter the pictures the better. She says for a start, one can invest in board books which are brightly coloured.

Beside, the books have strong covers which the child cannot easily tear. In the same vein, Nakate says children can experiment with play materials and in the process of dismantling to see what is inside, they are developing their finger muscles as well as the mind.

She, however, notes that some children have a natural bent towards reading early and writing before their peers. If yours is one of them, encourage and help them to continue by reading stories, allowing them to look at pictures or mere books, but never push.

A child can only master these advanced skills when the brain and intellect are sufficiently developed. A parent cannot tell whether a child's brain is capable of reading (and later writing) so they must take their lead from the child.

Until this happens, continue reading to them and point out and name the objects in the books and encourage the child to repeat them.

Benefits of early reading

Frida Muhangi, a kindergarten teacher, says reading from books together teaches the child learn about colours, the alphabet, numbers and names of simple objects.

A baby is never too young to be read to; the parent's voice will be soothing to him and one will soon find that reading books at bedtime getting into their evening routine. Muhangi says the bonus is that once a parent has introduced the child to books, he may want to read them alone.

"You will have done him a great service because you will not only have introduced him to the idea of entertaining himself, but also to a pleasure that will last him for the rest of his life," she affirms.