Joann Sfar, a famous cartoonist, said:
“An adult reads a book to be entertained,
a child reads a book to grow”.
For many reasons, children need to be told stories in order to grow. Here are 10:
1. To stimulate their senses
Children look, touch, handle and listen at the same time. Reading stimulates their hearing and sight through the link between picture and word.
2. To develop fine motor skills
At first, the very young child will start by chewing on books, then learns to turn the pages, lift the tabs or flaps, and coordinate eye and hand. Later they can use their finger to follow along while reading.
3. For the relationship with adults
Reading is a situation that fosters well-being and calm, in which the adult gives time to the child and encourages their “sense of importance”. Reading the same book to a child over and over again fosters the emergence of positive emotions: the joy of learning, of being in an affectionate and warm relationship, or of anticipating and taking part.
4. To develop language and vocabulary
Repetition literally changes the brain. Hearing the same story again and again anchors vocabulary in the brain. Children’s literature lends itself particularly well to this kind of learning: not only do children’s authors play with sounds and words, but they offer situations that are both mirrors and windows for children, and that make them laugh, which is very meaningful to them.
5. To understand stories
Familiarising children as early as possible with the structure of a story (beginning, adventures, end, logical and time connectors, agreement of tenses) enables them to tell events or stories themselves in a logical and chronological way. It is important to let the child tell the story they have heard several times. Narrative skill is not built through an attitude of listening, but through a constant back and forth between listening and telling.
6. To develop imagination and creativity
A creative child feels less helpless when faced with life’s unexpected events.
7. For reading and writing
Exposing young children to books supports their learning to read and write, because they gradually build the link between printed words and the words spoken by the adult who is reading.
8. For self-knowledge
Tales allow children to recognise their emotions, name them, understand them and face their difficulties. The child identifies with the characters and realises that they feel the same things as they do. The child then feels normal, and takes in the fact that their emotions and fantasies are not monstrous. When the hero wins in the end, it is also the victory of the child who identified with them. Tales help to reduce fears.
9. To act as mediators and get messages across
Books sometimes help adults get messages across to children, whether philosophical messages (such as altruism or awareness of ecology…) or messages more rooted in daily life (such as brushing teeth, quarrels between brothers and sisters or the arrival of a baby…).
10. For their listening skills
The ability to sustain their attention while listening gives them easier access to learning.
To go further, here are 3 tips about books:
• For the very young, up to the end of nursery school, preferably choose positive stories, because there is sadly a lot of horror in children’s books at an age when it is impossible for them to understand the relativity of points of view.
• Always prefer simple stories.
• Offer the child enough books for them to choose for themselves what they would like to be told regularly.
Happy storytelling to you
Flore Guattari Michaux works in private practice in Colombes (92) with children, adolescents and adults. She specialises in parenting and digital technology.
