Reading To Children Quotes

“...before most of us possess an inkling that babies could be listening to us, infants are making astonishing connections between listening to human voices and developing their language system.

Think how much more can happen in those regions when parents slowly, deliberately read to their children, *just to them*, with mutually focused attention. This disarmingly simple act makes huge contributions: it provides not only the most palpable associations with reading, but also a time when parent and child are together in a timeless interaction that involves shared attention; learning about words, sentences, and concepts; and even learning what a book is. One of the most salient influences on young children's attention involves the shared gaze that occurs and develops while parents read to them. With little conscious effort children learn to focus their visual attention on what their parent or caretaker is looking at without losing an ounce of their own curiosity and exploratory behaviors. As the philosopher Charles Taylor notes, "The crucial condition for human language learning is *joint* attention," which he and others who are involved in studying the ontogenesis of language consider one of the most important features of human evolution.”
― Maryanne Wolf, Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World

“Again, again..." really means "We must love each other, you and I, if this one story, told and retold, is all we need." Reading again isn't about repeating yourself; it's about offering fresh proof of a love that never tires.”
― Daniel Pennac

“You have to talk to your children about things, a lot of our parents don’t do that. You have to explain things to children as to why certain things happen. I think that a good way of improving comprehension is to read the newspaper with your child. A lot of times certain sensational things happen and children want to find out why it happened. And sometimes you would hear them talking to each other passing on erroneous information. Daynette Gardiner, the best School Psychologist in The Bahamas”
― Drexel Deal, The Fight of My Life is Wrapped Up in My Father

“Increasing numbers of developmental researchers observe that when parents read stories on e-books with their children, their interactions frequently center on the more mechanical and more gamelike aspects of e-books, rather than the content and the words and ideas in the stories. Most parents are simply better at fostering language and helping to clarify concepts when they read physical books to their preschool children.”
― Maryanne Wolf, Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World

“Have you heard the story about the time Emil got his head stuck in the soup tureen?”
“Yeees…”
“Have you heard it lots of times?”
“Yesss!”
“Oh, so maybe you don’t want to hear it again?”
“Yes, we do!” they shout.
Jan smiles at them. All your troubles disappear when you look into the eyes of a child. They absorb all the light in the world, and it shines out of them. He opens the book and begins to read.”
― Johan Theorin