APPLETON (NBC 26) — The benefits of reading to children begin as soon as they're born, according to experts who emphasize that early literacy creates a foundation for lifelong learning and stronger family bonds.
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Dr. Dipesh Navsaria, a pediatrician and professor at UW-Madison, said reading helps children develop critical thinking skills that extend far beyond childhood.
"They learn new words, they learn how to extrapolate from context so a word they may not know they can figure out from the context of the other sentences. All these skills we use in our whole lives and they start in early infancy," Navsaria said.
But the benefits extend beyond vocabulary building. Navsaria said the time spent together during reading is equally important for child development.
"There's also what we call relational health, the health of relationships, and book sharing is an amazing scaffold for parents and young parents to spend time together," Navsaria said.
Parents like Madeline Schreiber have made daily reading a priority with her son Jacob, despite having three older siblings competing for attention.
"Part of it is the time with me, he's got three older siblings. He loves the books, he loves looking at the pictures, exploring everything on pages. Not even necessarily the story but just like, 'look at this, look at that,'" Schreiber said.
Navsaria emphasized that while books are helpful tools, the key ingredient for child development is engaged interaction from caring adults.
"People, loving caring people who love interacting with their young children — that's what drives development, all the research says that," Navsaria said.
Libraries across the Fox Cities host story times for toddlers and offer parent support programs weekly to encourage early literacy habits in families, some of their event calendars are linked below.
