For most families, one of the daily routines is story time with the children. Without any doubt, it is a special time for the children as they get to hear you tell an interesting story before going to sleep, but more importantly, it helps you to strengthen your parent-child relationship, and can even help the child get rid of stress & anxiety. Thus, this routine helps ensure a goodnight’s sleep!
But, other than the obvious benefits mentioned above, bedtime storytelling also helps a lot in the development of your child! So yes, all the time and energy you invest in reading stories to your kids every night is a lot more beneficial than you can think!
So, without wasting time, let’s look at how nighttime storytelling can be beneficial for your child’s development & can even pave the way for their future success.
8 Benefits of Bedtime Storytelling for Kids
Although there are tons of benefits associated with bedtime storytelling for kids, let’s look at the top eight:
1. Improved Vocabulary
When you are reading books to your children at night, you are not just talking to them, but you are also building their vocabulary. In our daily routine, we usually speak the same words, which doesn’t add any new words to the kid’s vocabulary. But by reading books at night time, they are introduced to a variety of new words!
In addition, nighttime stories for kids can cover a lot of different topics and genres. So as long as you are not reading the same story every night on repeat for years and continue to read them new stories, it will help your kids to learn new words.
According to research, a 5-year child can understand 24,000 words, but that’s only possible if they are exposed to a lot of different words!
2. Develops Reading Habits
The only way to ensure that your children continue to read independently once they grow up is to start early. As they say, children are creatures of habit and thus will most likely do the same things as their parents. So if the children never see their parents read a book themselves or read one to them, they will not find reading attractive.
We all know how important reading is for education and even for gaining knowledge about different subjects!
3. Improved Writing Skills
When a child is exposed to imaginative stories at night, it helps them to develop a strong imagination and even helps with their vocabulary. And as mentioned earlier, bedtime stories also promote reading habits which help the kid to get exposed to a lot of different material. All of this can help them to become good writers during their schooling years.
Although creative writing is a skill that’s learned slowly and takes years, you can lay a good foundation by reading them a variety of bedtime stories.
4. Creativity & Imagination
Books can open the doors to a magical world for the child where everything can happen… From adventure islands to magical items and so on. In real life, it can be hard to replicate all of that!
All of this can help a child develop a strong imagination and even helps them to get more creative. As your children grow up, one of the most important skills that will help them succeed in life is to think creatively!
In addition, bedtime storytelling also helps the children to expand their imagination and incorporate stories into symbolic play and fantasy.
All of this helps in coming up with unique ideas and solutions to problems. If you look around, most famous people are creative thinkers who came up with unique ideas or solved a problem!
5. Improved Concentration
Being able to concentrate is very important for personal, academic, and professional life. At school, a child needs to concentrate for a long period of time on different subjects. But if they lack concentration, it can become difficult for them to understand different topics.
For example, watching TV doesn’t require any concentration as it is a passive activity. According to research, watching TV can actually decrease the attention span of children and can affect their brains in a negative way.
On the other hand, bedtime stories require active concentration as they need to listen… And the anticipation of finding out what happens at the end of a story can keep them glued and fully concentrated!
So if you want to improve the concentration of your child, start reading those bedtime stories instead of letting them watch TV for hours.
6. More Knowledge
There’s a reason why most children’s stories are built to teach a lesson or convey a message in the end. As human beings, we tend to learn things that interest and motivate us. Moreover, there’s nothing more motivating for children than a bedtime story!
So one of the best ways to help your children gain more knowledge is through reading interesting bedtime stories. It will help them to gain knowledge on a lot of different topics!
For best results, read both fiction and non-fiction books to your children, and before you know it, they will have knowledge about a lot of different concepts and ideas.
7. Values & Morals
The majority of children’s stories are built to convey a message such as cooperation, tolerance, honesty, kindness, respect, strong self-belief, and so on.
When these values and morals are taught to children in the form of a story, they learn and absorb these messages into their personalities! In a world that is facing a decline in values and morals, it has become even more important to bring up your kids with good values!
And once your kids grow up, they will be a productive member of society and will ultimately lift up society as well!
8. Problem-Solving Skills
Another common trait in most bedtime stories is that the characters are faced with difficult situations that they must find a solution to!
When a child is exposed to different scenarios and how the characters in stories always find a solution to their problem, it helps them to develop problem-solving skills!
These problem-solving skills can help your child in their lives and even when they grow up! According to statistics, one of the most sought-after skills for the foreseeable future is problem-solving skills. According to a survey, 86% of employers around the world look for problem-solving skills in potential employees!
Age-Appropriate Book Ideas for Children
The only way to reap all of the benefits mentioned above and many others is to read good quality books to your children!
We have listed some suggestions for the best books for bedtime reading that you can use as inspiration.
Babies (Age: 0-1)
- A Book of Sleep (Il Sung Na)
- The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle)
- First 100 Words (Roger Priddy)
- Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? (Bill Martin Jr.)
Toddlers (Age: 1-3)
- I am actually a Penguin (Sean Taylor)
- We’re Different, We’re the Same (Bobbi Kates)
- The bear in my bed (Joyce Wan)
- The Giving Tree (Shel Silverstein)
Preschool (Age: 3-5)
- Round is a tortilla (Roseanne Thong)
- Dragons Love Tacos (Adam Rubin)
- Swimmy (Leo Lionni)
- Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak)
Grade School (Age: 5-12)
- Because of Winn Dixie (Kate DiCamillo)
- Olivia (Ian Falconer)
- Charlotte’s Web (E.B White)
- The Colors of Us (Karen Katz)
Get Your Children To Read 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten
The 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten program is designed to help caregivers prepare children for one of life’s big milestones: kindergarten. Studies have shown that families who start reading aloud to their children at birth help strengthen their language skills and build their vocabulary. Click here to learn more about the 1000 Books Foundation.