Kornmehl
Alexandra Levy
The benefits of reading aloud to children
Reading to young children from birth through to age six years is crucial for their development and offers numerous benefits for children, parents, and adults.
Firstly, reading helps in language acquisition and development. It exposes children to a wide range of vocabulary, sentence structures, and storytelling techniques, which enhances their communication skills and expands their knowledge.
Secondly, reading promotes cognitive development. It stimulates critical thinking, imagination, and problem-solving abilities in children. Through reading, children learn to make connections, analyse information, and develop their creativity.
Thirdly, reading fosters emotional and social development. It introduces children to different characters, situations, and emotions, helping them understand and empathise with others. It also provides a platform for discussions, bonding, and building relationships between parents and children.
Reading also enhances literacy skills. Regular exposure to books and reading materials improves children’s reading comprehension, fluency, and overall literacy levels. This foundation is essential for academic success and lifelong learning.
For parents, reading to their children creates a special bonding experience. It allows for quality time together, strengthens the parent-child relationship, and promotes a love for learning. Additionally, it provides an opportunity for parents to model good reading habits and instil a lifelong love of reading in their children.
Lastly, reading with children can be enjoyable and fulfilling for adults, as they witness the growth and development of their children’s literacy skills.
For these reasons, we nurture early literacy through reading to children at Pre-school every day to support not only their language development but also their emotional literacy.
Inspired by an exhibition that Renee attended in Melbourne called Connection, which featured stories through First Nations art and music, the Dolphin children were invited to view the images which we projected onto the wall. We then used these images to inspire their artwork, whilst listening to Indigenous music. In this way, we raised their awareness to the Traditional owners of this land.
Alma: There is knowledge in you and it makes you big and strong.
Abbie: The land is still growing when someone just made the earth.
Ziggy: The earth is the biggest power source.
The Starfish children have been involved in a clay project, making a dinner set for the home corner and other authentic and meaningful pieces. They have been gaining new skills, such as using the pinch technique, to create interesting designs on the sides of their plates.
The Seashell children have been learning about zoo animals, as well as recycling, and have been using recycled materials in their artwork.
Milo: I have lots of different bins in my house.
Nellie: Food scraps go in the green bin.
Aria: At Pre-school, the food goes in the green bins and then it goes in the compost for the worms.
Charlie: At kindy I put my yoghurt in our blue bin. My yoghurt lid goes in the white bin so we can use it to do things.
Happy Birthday
We wish a very special and happy birthday to Jesse Gilbert-Deutsch (4), Nellie Pillemer (4), Charlie Langbart (4), Amalia Smiley-Oxman, Evie Wicks (4), Noa Hamor (5), Dylan Bloom (5), Joseph Kummerfeld (5), Luc Marmot (5), James Samway (5),Noam Viterbo (5). We hope you had a very special birthday!
