What Are the Benefits of Children Reading Fictional Stories?
Children's fiction teaches civics lessons and helps children explore complex social issues in entertaining ways. These stories also spark children's imaginations, preparing them for life transitions and motivating them to achieve.
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Citizenship skills
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Children's fiction helps youngsters develop good citizenship skills. The characters "are concerned about and involved in their society. They confront choices every citizen must make," children's and young adults' book author Thomas McGowan writes.
Lessons in Empathy
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Fiction is "a kind of simulation of the social world," writes Keith Oatley of the University of Toronto. His research showed that reading fiction makes people understand and empathize with the dilemmas fictional characters face, helping them to "understand the complexities of social life."
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Science Education
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Children prefer to learn about science through stories because they "have been 'marinated' in the story form" since they began to read. It's a familiar and enjoyable way to learn, an article in the journal Childhood Education says.
Thinking Skills
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The mystery novel, "encourages the development of logic and reasoning (deductive) skills," Reading for Kids explains.
Difficult Life Challenges
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Fantasy--including fairy tales--exposes children to romance, pain, violence and death, subjects that adults often avoid discussing. This makes these stories "therapeutic as well as entertaining," Harvard Professor Maria Tatar contends. She also observes that traditional fairy tales introduce children to moral ambiguity and portray heroes who defeat evil, not with violence, but intelligence and cunning.
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