Teaching Children the Importance of Reading

"Hi, I?m Pam on behalf of Expert Village and I'm going to teach you how to bring home fundamentals learned at school. Kids learn a lot through books. They learn about people who are like them and who are different. They develop empathy for the characters that are in the books and they develop social skills when they share stories and they read books together. Now for instance, a kid who has lived at the beach their whole life may have never seen or know anything about snow. But, they read a book and all of a sudden, they are experts. They are learning about the world around them. They are also learning about cause and effect and they are learning to predict things. For instance, books like this help them predict things AA they start off with just one thing; such as "the deep blue sea". Each time something is added. Then there is a green tree; then a red rock in the blue sea. Then later on, there's a nut on the green tree, on the red rock, on the deep blue sea. By the end of it; believe it or not, kids are going to know that the deep blue sea is coming at the end. They learn basic skills, like counting, shapes, colors. They also learn something that's called word and color recognition. They learn to relate things. For instance, kids learn quicker if say they see the word orange written in the color orange. That's going to help them when they get older in first, second grade when they are learning to write; or if they see the word purple written in the color purple. If they see the word boy written under the word boy, they actually learn even at a young age of 3 can make a connection between the words and the symbols. Now, what can you do at home? Read them a book, allow them to look at the pictures and make up their own story to go along with it. Whatever you do, reading is very, very good for kids."