Martha Meloy

Final Exam Essay, Persuasive Speech

“The Benefits of Introducing Literature to Children at a Young Age”

We all hear how important it is to expose our children to literature at a young age but

how important is it, really? Have you ever heard a parent say, “the school will teach my child to

read in Kindergarten, it’s not my job”, or “my child will read plenty of books once they start

school, why waste my child’s time now when they could simply enjoy playing”. Unfortunately,

these parents are sadly mistaken about the impact books have on our children and the act of

reading books to our children at a young age, even as young as 6 months old. As soon as your

child can respond to your voice, start reading to them. A child is never too young to curl up on

his or her parent’s lap listening to a book being read aloud to them. Not only does it provide a

closeness and warmness that is imperative to foster a growing child but it has countless other

benefits ranging from cognitive development, personality development, social development, and

even language skills. Exposing your child to literature at a young age is the best thing you can

do for them.

We all want our children to have excellent vocabularies when speaking and writing. We

also want them to communicate intelligently with others. How do these important language

skills develop in children? The answer is easy, it’s by reading books to them and providing a

literature rich environment for them to grow up in. Between the ages of two and three children

have rapid language development. By the time children are three to four years old their

vocabularies have increased to 1,500 words, increasing to 2,500 words by age four or five and

6,000 words by the age of five or six. So reading books and discussing them with your children

is vital for building a rich vocabulary and developing language skills. One of the crucial aspects
of reading to children is engaging in conversation with your children after reading a book. This

dialogue will depend on the age and stage of your child but most importantly, conversing about

what you’ve read will help with developing language skills.

Even young children as young as nine months old can benefit from hearing the sounds of

language and experimenting with the sounds they hear. Choosing books with repetitive language

and rhythmic sounds will encourage young children as young as two years old to join in. Sound

patterns, rhyming words and rhythm found in books appeal to young children and encourage

them to participate with you as you read the story. If you read and recite rhymes, poetry, and

riddles with your two or three year old you can develop healthy language skills.

Children’s language development is also supported through their play. Books that

encourage children to pretend or play in different ways and suggest many examples of play

nurture a child’s imagination. After reading books young children’s imaginations are stimulated

and they can gain ideas to use during dramatic play scenarios, which turn common occurrences

in to creative, fun filled fantasy worlds. Books help open the doors to your child’s imagination,

which can lead to countless hours of entertainment for themselves and their friends.

Reading books from different genres enable children to learn about the world they live in.

They are exposed to numerous ideas, cultures, and phenomenon of the world. Even a three year

old can compare his or her home and way of life to a child from a different culture when asked

the appropriate questions from the reader. If we start asking our children why, how, and what if

questions about the books we read with them, we are stimulating their cognitive abilities at a

time when their brains are developing at a rapid rate. Walter Loban completed an extensive

longitudinal study of children and their oral language skills. He studied school age children from

five years old to eighteen years of age. The study found that there is a direct relationship between
oral language development and success at reading and writing during the school years. If we

want to maximize our children’s learning abilities we need to read to our children and engage in

effective dialogue about the books that we read so that oral language skills are developed and

cognitive abilities are nourished.

Exposing your child to literature can have substantial effects on their cognitive abilities.

These abilities include observing, comparing, classifying, hypothesizing, organizing,

summarizing, applying and criticizing. You can develop a three year old and his or her higher

level thinking skills by reading books. By simply observing pictures in a wordless picture book

children as young as two or three can use their observational skills and tell a story about the

pictures they see. One year olds can observe basic knowledge like colors, shapes and simple

objects or ideas through listening to a book being read aloud. Two and three year olds can

classify their worlds by putting things into categories of alike and different. They can also

classify objects in books into other categories likes pets and wild animals or they can classify

character’s emotions like happy and sad.

Using books that organize ideas for children is beneficial to help them understand the

concepts of time, the different seasons of the year, and the months of the year. Reading

organizational books about daily routines will help young children build a better understanding

of the world they live in. Even two year olds can summarize information in books. They can

recall events, tell about their favorite parts, the saddest part, or the funniest part of the books they

have read to them. Three year olds can hypothesize about what will happen next in a story or

hypothesize about what picture they will see next in a book. They can easily make predictions

about the story or characters involved within a story. Children will apply newly gained

knowledge from literature to their schemas, which build on their prior knowledge. Three and
four year olds can begin to criticize and respond to what is being read to them. Exposing

literature to children aids cognitive growth in many ways but the most important thing to

remember is to dialogue with your little ones about what they have read to build these essential

cognitive skills. Research indicates that the types of questions we ask our children directly affect

their levels of thinking and their evaluative skills.

One of the greatest gifts we can give our children is a loving, warm, safe environment to

grow up in. Using books along with this environment will help ensure that you will raise an

emotionally stable child who is happy and learns to handle his or her emotions in a positive

manner. Books give children an understanding of their feelings, how to cope with them and

develop a positive self-concept. Books also give examples of how others have coped with

problems, and model positive environments for young children to learn from. Three year olds

can get a sense of optimism and hope when characters find ways to cope with negative feelings

or fears characters have that are similar to their own fears. Positive role models in books show

how different characters overcome these fears and negative emotions.

At age three children begin to realize that they need and want to feel valued by others and

society. Quality literature shows children how they can be different from others but still be

valued as an individual. The possibilities when reading good literature are limitless when

developing your child’s personality. Relating to others, overcoming identifiable emotions,

feeling pride in oneself, having empathy for others and even adventuring to a happy, carefree

place in a book are just a few of the countless ways your child’s personality development can

benefit from reading books with you.

When focusing on the bigger picture and how our children fit into the world and our

society children’s books offer guidance, tolerance, and acceptance of others. Literature
encourages children to become sensitive to the feelings of others. At ages two and three children

begin to mimic the behaviors of others. Quality literature enables young people to develop a

positive sense of how to behave and interact with people that may be different from themselves.

It exposes them to different ethnic groups and creates respect for minorities in a positive way. At

ages three and four children learn that others have feelings. Fostering appropriate empathy

towards others can be easily accomplished by exposing children to books that offer positive role

models and environments to learn from. Literature can teach young children that all dreams are

attainable despite gender differences. There are numerous titles that show boys and girls

achieving their goals and accomplishments despite overcoming obstacles. Good books can crate

an environment that nurtures positive role models and accepting others wholeheartedly despite

being different. When it comes to advancing positive social skills in your child, open a book and

let his or her uninhibited curiosity of the world we live in reach endless bounds.

Along with the numerous ways books benefit children academically, there are other very

significant ways books help our children. If we instill in our children a love of literature at a

young age it will stay with them in their life journey and they will become avid adult readers.

Providing opportunities to read for pleasure from books children have selecting themselves and

for opportunities to investigate informative texts, we will show children books are educational

and fun. If we read each day to our children we will not only foster a love of reading but we will

transmit valuable literary heritage from one generation to another. Young children can relive the

past and speculate about the future.

One of the greatest benefits of reading to your child is having their warm, little bodies

next to yours with their curious minds and imaginations open to the endless possibilities and the

adventures you can take together. While knowing you are truly doing the best thing you can do
for your children. Go home and read a book and don’t forget to dialogue with your little one

about it. You’ll feel pride and accomplishment with yourself knowing what a great parent you

are and what a great child your are developing. You’ll send your child into the world with

superb cognitive abilities, a great personality, wonderful social skills and best of all, the power to

use their language skills to communicate intelligently and effectively with others. Wow, the

power of reading and exposing children to literature at a young age is limitless.

** Through the Eyes of a Child: An Introduction to Children’s Literature by Donna E.

Norton published in 2007 was used to develop this speech.