This piece was updated on the 19th of February 2021.
“The more you read, the more things you know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” This is a famous quote by Dr Suess. And it’s 100% accurate. The importance of reading skills cannot be stressed enough. As a teacher, I often find that when I express my concern about a child’s reading ability and comprehension to parents, particularly at around the age of 10, parents are quite taken aback and I’m greeted with “but they’re so young, give them a chance.” When a teacher shows concern in this area, it is with due cause. Reading is fundamental in helping us find and convey information. It’s an essential skill that’s developed at a very young age. Here’s why reading is beneficial to all of us, and how the importance of reading comprehension is essential to understanding the world around us.
The benefits of reading
Reading has many benefits, but it’s a skill that even a lot of adults don’t use enough. Apart from the necessity of reading to get by in today’s world, let’s look at some other benefits of reading and how these can contribute positively to your child’s development.
Reading helps you discover the world
Reading is a gateway to learning anything about everything. It helps you discover new things and educate yourself in any area of life you are interested in. You can find a book on just about any subject you can imagine, dive in and start learning. Your child can learn about their interests (and even themselves) through reading things they enjoy.
Reading develops your imagination and creativity
When we watch television or a movie, all the information is given to us on the screen – there’s nothing we need to imagine. A book in its pure form is just words on a page, and our minds have to do the work, imagining the words coming to life. This does wonders to develop our creativity and imagination.
Reading improves vocabulary and communication
Giving your child access to a world of words is one of the best ways to improve their vocabulary and enhance their spelling skills. New knowledge that’s gained through enjoyment has a tendency to stick and doesn’t even feel like work! Both their written and spoken communication abilities can be improved through regular reading.
Reading helps with building a good self-image and playing well with others
Learning new concepts, discovering exciting places and understanding others’ perspectives is key to building a well-rounded self-image – not to mention the self-esteem boost from being able to read well! It’s at early ages that children can be most easily influenced, and a positive reading experience can do wonders to help them form a positive perception of themselves. Reading also has social benefits. Children can discuss stories with others and form friendships over shared interests.
Reading improves concentration and reduces stress
Not only does reading focus your attention entirely on the task at hand, it also immerses you in the information, improving concentration and memory of what you read. Getting completely involved in a book can help us relax and feel calm.
Active vs passive reading
Learning to read is the first step. From there, your child will start to increase comprehension and become an active reader. The use of appropriate reading strategies is essential in learning and in life. So, what is the difference between a “passive” unskilled reader and an “active” skilled reader?
The passive reader
Have you ever read a page in a book and not taken in anything you’ve just read? Or caught yourself reading and re-reading the same paragraph without actively acknowledging the words? This is passive reading without any meaningful engagement.
The active reader
Active readers engage with what they’re reading. They read with an open and questioning mind, and they stop to think more about what things mean. Here are some ideas, as set out by Miami University, of how skilled active readers read:
- They can predict what will happen next in a story using clues they gain from reading.
- They create questions about the main idea, message or plot.
- They monitor understanding of the sequence, context or characters.
- They stop to clarify parts of the text that have confused them.They connect events in the text to prior knowledge or experience.
If you’re interested in improving your child’s reading, you might be interested in promoting your child’s active listening skills.
The importance of reading comprehension
Reading comprehension is the ability to understand a written passage of text. It’s the bridge between the passive reader and active reader, and the crucial link to effective reading – essential for a rich academic, professional and personal life. Reading comprehension involves several different processes, such as imagining what the words describe, understanding the context of the book and being able to answer questions related to a text. Think about a book you’ve read before, and then try to summarise what the book was about. If your child can answer questions about a book or text, explain important events that happened in a story and have an opinion about why the events may have occurred, they’re displaying comprehension skills. Without reading and comprehension skills, children will struggle to grow academically, as reading is the foundation to all academic subjects such as History, Mathematics and Science. It also influences your child’s ability to write. Reading fluency is also a very important part of reading comprehension, as readers who spend their time decoding words often lose the understanding of what is being read. If your child is still decoding at a Grade 3 level, it’s vital to focus on the basics to give them a strong reading comprehension foundation. This can include paying more attention, auditory analysis, sound blending, memory, processing speed and visual perception. A lack of strong reading comprehension skills affects a child’s success at school, as academic progress depends on understanding, analysing and applying information gathered through reading.
How to help your child’s reading comprehension
If your child needs some help improving their reading comprehension, encourage active reading by focusing on these strategies:
Reading with purpose
Active reading encourages understanding through engagement with the text. If your child is interested in the material, they will be far more likely to involve themselves in learning about it and become a more active reader.
Learning vocabulary
It’s very easy to lose track of what you’re reading if you don’t understand some of the words, but we all tend to skim over words we don’t know on occasion without taking the time to look them up. Learning new vocabulary will help your child get a deeper understanding of what they’re reading. Ask your child to write down any words that they don’t understand and you can look up the meanings together.
Retelling what they’ve read
After they’ve read a short section of a text, ask your child to tell you about it in their own words. Recalling the story helps with comprehension, and you can also gauge how much they’ve understood.
Asking and answering questions
Read the same text or chapter as your child and open a discussion by asking them questions about it and inviting them to do the same. Discussing a book is an excellent way to check understanding and keep the material fresh in their mind.
Summarising the important facts
Summarising is a great way to improve active reading and comprehension skills. It requires an understanding of the whole text and judgement about which information is the most important. If your child can tell you the important parts of a story, they’re well on their way to being an exceptional active reader!
What should parents do to improve their child’s reading skills?
A lot of reading difficulty can come about because children feel like reading is hard work, or they just aren’t interested in what they are reading. Encouraging good reading habits is a step in the right direction for parents looking to help their children read well.
Read to your child
It’s never too early to start reading to your child and reading together can become a healthy and enjoyable family activity. Reading out loud exposes young children to new words that will help their language skills. Interacting with books from an early age helps to make the activity into a routine.
Read to yourself
If your child sees you reading regularly, they’re more likely to build an interest in the activity. Find a book you love and read whenever you get the chance. Your child will learn from you.
Surround them with books
Having a variety of books to choose from is a great way for your child to discover what interests them. Reading something enjoyable will do wonders for their curiosity and reading comprehension. They’ll be skilled, active readers in no time! Reading is important because words are the building blocks of life. Get your child excited about reading, and they’ll surprise you with their progress.
WorksheetCloud offers your child access to engaging English and Afrikaans comprehension worksheets. Sign up now – we offer a seven-day money-back guarantee.
I am so touched about this email, as my son is in grade 7 he still struggles to read and spell words in a way that a certain school is refusing to take him for interview after his interview as he struggled to read a comprehension that was given to him. Please assist, how can I help him to overcome this? I am very worried!
Hi Mbalenhle
Thanks for your message.
We are glad to hear that you found some value from this blog post.
Learning to read is a challenge for many kids, but most can become good readers if they get the right help. Parents have an important job in recognizing when a child is struggling and knowing how to find help.
A good place to start, would be to make an appointment to speak with your child’s teacher. The best thing that can happen is for parents and teachers to begin talking together to plan ways to help a child overcome or cope with his or her reading difficulties. You can be supportive at home while the teacher can accommodate your child’s needs and work to increase his or her skills in the classroom. Together you can make sure the help a child receives out-of-school meshes with what’s happening in school. When you meet, ask questions such as:
– Do you think my child is having trouble with reading?
– What specific trouble is my child having?
– What can I do to help my child at home?
– What can be done to help my child in class?
– Which reading group is my child in?
– How is he or she doing compared to other students?
If the teacher is unable to assist, or thinks that your child may need an assessment, ask the school for an evaluation. You can write a short letter to request that the school’s specialists review your child’s progress, they will determine whether a child should be checked for speech or language delays, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, or other conditions that may be affecting how your child learns. If it is determined that your child needs extra help or a short intervention, the school may be able to provide this either in the child’s regular classroom or with a remedial specialist at the school.
Note: Do make sure that your child is evaluated in his or her strongest language. It is important that your child is tested in the language he or she knows best. The purpose of such testing is to find out whether a child’s reading problem is due to second language learning, language delay, or a learning disability.
If the school will not evaluate your child, or they evaluate your child and you think you need a second opinion, consider going to a specialist outside of the school. They can do an “independent education evaluation.” There will likely be a fee, however.
You could also take a look at some more of our blog posts on reading and how to improve reading skills, you can find these articles here:
https://www.worksheetcloud.com/blog/the-art-of-reading-with-your-child/
https://www.worksheetcloud.com/blog/4-ways-to-improve-your-childs-reading-in-2016/
I hope this helps. Please let us know if you’d like more information or tips on how to address reading difficulties at home, we’ll be happy to help.
Kayleen 🙂
I read this and I feel this is the best way to inprove reading skills. Thanks you to sharing this information.
My child is 5 yrs old she doesn’t want to read and write she likes only playing what to do.l am fed up with her she is not listening to me .please help me out how to create interest in her in learning.
Hi Syeda, thanks for your comment on our blog!
I completely understand and hear your frustration. I have a suggestion that you could maybe try, as well as a few very useful blog articles for you to have a look through when you have time.
Suggestion 1, sign up to WorksheetCloud!
Suggestion 2, when you get to summarize your daughter’s work or make use of our worksheets, my suggestion would be to first start helping by completing an open book worksheet (doing the worksheet with their school books next to them, which they can refer to for answers), then you can mark her work together. This will help her to draw connections from the work in her textbook or study summaries to the written answers she gives. Marking it together will help build her confidence and she will feel supported (try to make a big deal of the answers she gets correct).
Then she should complete the worksheet again, but this time with no books and no help. Once completed, she can either mark it alone, or you can mark it together again. Maybe make it a bit of a competition, where for every correct answer she gets 5 minutes of T.V time (or any activity she loves). Incentives work like a charm! This will help to pinpoint the specific areas of that topic that require further study. Talk to her about the questions she got wrong and look for the correct answers or explanations in her school books. She can then read through the work again and then attempt the worksheet a third time.
All three attempts don’t have to be done in one day, you can spread them out, depending on her concentration ability and extra mural responsibilities. Going over the work, with guidance from you and her books, will help a lot.
WorksheetCloud also provides interactive online worksheets that are very easy to follow and fun to do. Each worksheet that you do contains 6 questions; this means that your daughter doesn’t have to concentrate for long periods at a time. When she does a worksheet she can complete the 6 questions, take a break, and then continue doing the worksheets again. This allows the child to be able to focus just a little bit at a time so that they don’t feel frustrated or frazzled by the amount of questions.
In addition to all of the above, you can also take a look at some of our blog posts covering ‘how to motivate your child to keep studying/trying’, you can find them here:
https://www.worksheetcloud.com/9-ways-to-motivate-your-child-to-study/
https://www.worksheetcloud.com/3-ways-to-ensure-effective-studying/
https://www.worksheetcloud.com/blog/3-ways-to-improve-your-childs-attitude-towards-learning/
I hope this helps. Please also let us know if there are any other blog topics you would like us to cover in the future or if you have any questions regarding our content.
Ross 🙂
Hi i need help my son does not know how to read i want to help him he is in grade3..
Can you please help to be able to help my so
Hi Thembisile, thanks for your comment on our blog!
We can definitely help you! Have you checked out our free Grade 3 online lessons on Reading? We have quite a few lessons on how to help your child with reading skills which you can access at anytime using this link: https://www.worksheetcloud.com/free-videos/grade-3-free-videos/
When children learn to read at an early age, they have greater general knowledge, expand their vocabulary and become more fluent readers. Early readers can also recognize a larger number of words by sight, which enables them to learn more from and about their environment.
You’ll be happy to know that our worksheets and practice exams have specifically been designed to help give your child that extra help and support that they might need. Your child can work at their own pace and have the ability to work on what they struggle with, while being rewarded for the effort they put in. They can study in a way that works best for them by choosing short bursts of practice questions that give them instant feedback, or longer practice exams that simulate a real exam environment at school.
I hope this helps. Please also let us know if there are any other blog topics you would like us to cover in the future or if you have any questions regarding our content.
Ross 🙂
Thank you very much for this excellent article. I am an Afrikaans Language High School teacher. If only all parents of primary school learners could have read this important information. It is indeed heart-breaking for a gr 8 learner to come here and struggle to read.
Reading problems can partly be contributed by the poor orientation to the learners.Some learners fail to catch up with the rest of their fellows as they join the school late.When they join late they find others have gone so far.As a result they do not much and hence they develop fear.
Special treatment should be established to them in order to orient them gradually until they master the basic skills for reading.
I believe reading should take place at an early age WHereby a child will be equipped with solid foundation of literacy
Hi Cindy! Thanks so much for your comment! I couldn’t agree with you more! When children learn to read at an early age, they have greater general knowledge, expand their vocabulary and become more fluent readers.
Early readers can also recognize a larger number of words by sight, which enables them to learn more from and about their environment.
Please let us know if there are any other blog topics you would like for us to cover in the future or if you have any questions regarding our content.
Ross 🙂
I have created a colourful welcoming reading area with different size books , magazines . I put flashcards and alphabetical chart n even words they appear on our daily lives so this help me to encourage them to read
Hi Maureen! Thanks for your comment! That’s a great idea, thanks for sharing! Please let us know if there are any other blog topics you would like for us to cover in the future or if you have any questions regarding our content.
Ross 🙂
Woww😘 This paper is awesome, I have learnt a lot.
Hi Calvince, thanks for your comment! I’m really glad to see that you found our article helpful!
Please let us know if there are any other blog topics or useful surveys you would like us to cover in the future or if you have any questions regarding our content.
Kyle 🙂
You make a good point when you mention how reading can help people improve vocabulary when speaking and writing. I have noticed that my sister’s vocabulary is causing her to struggle in school, especially when she tries to write essays. Maybe it would be best for her to start reading more books to help her develop an advanced vocabulary.
Hi Eli! Thanks so much for your comment! If practiced correctly, reading books and novels suiting your sister’s level can accelerate vocabulary-building, improve grammar, and sharpen writing. Although reading doesn’t directly impact your spoken English, it can to some extent improve it through better vocabulary, reading out loud, and a deeper knowledge base. I hope this helps.
Ross 🙂
I love that you brought up how reading can help develop your mind to be more creative and assist you is becoming more imaginative. My brother would like to write a fantasy novel someday, but his ideas seem to be dry and uncreative since he didn’t enjoy reading as a child. Perhaps introducing him to some new books could help him come up with more creative ideas for his novel.
Hi Darrien! Thanks for your comment! Research has shown that reading is key to boosting our own mental capacity and creativity. Introducing your brother to some new books will definitely spark some creativity for his novel.
You can read through this article on exactly how reading inspires creativity: https://thatistheday.com/reading-will-inspire-creativity/
I hope this helps.
Ross 🙂
I think the author has done a lot of research to write this post.
Thank you author for this wonderful post.
For more benefits must visit,
Business Insane – “READ THE SUCCESS” https://www.businessinsane.com/2019/12/top-10-benefits-of-reading-books.html
Hi Rajan! Thanks for your comment and for sharing the article! Please let us know if there are any other blog topics you would like for us to cover in the future or if you have any questions regarding our content.
Ross 🙂
Hello! May I ask what year did you published this article? If it’s okay I’ll include it as one of my references in my research. Thank you so much! 🙂
Hi Mei! Thanks for your comment on our blog!
Sure no problem! The article was posted in 2017.
I hope this helps!
Ross 🙂
I’m thankful that you mentioned how your child may have difficulties with learning if they do not develop their reading skills. My son has recently mentioned that he doesn’t understand what is going on when he attends kindergarten classes, and I recently found out that he doesn’t have any of the alphabet memorized. I think reading books with him at home would help ensure that he stays on track when he is at school.
I agree with what you said that reading develops a person’s mind and imagination, which makes them more creative. My son is turning twelve soon, and he’s a really creative teen. Perhaps I should buy him the new young adult superhero books for his birthday. Thanks for this!
Hi Levi, thanks for your comment!
I’m really happy to hear that you found or blog useful! I’m sure he would love those superhero books for his birthday, I know I would!
Please let us know if there are any other blog topics you would like for us to cover in the future or if you have any questions regarding our content.
Ross 🙂
My sister just quit her job recently and asked me to help her in choosing a book to read with all the free time she now has. I appreciate you helping me learn about the benefits of reading, and I definitely agree with what you said that that it helps you have new learnings on the things that interest you the most. Since she will mostly be staying at home, I think I would recommend an adventure book to her so that she can still satiate her wanderlust from her couch.
Hi Angela, thanks for your comment! I’m glad to see that you found our article helpful!
There are a variety of exciting adventure series available. Perhaps you could go and ask at your local library or a bookstore for some recommendations.
Please let us know if there are any other blog topics or useful surveys you would like us to cover in the future or if you have any questions regarding our content.
Kyle 🙂
Studies show that reading for pleasure makes a big difference to children’s educational performance. Likewise, evidence suggests that children who read for enjoyment every day not only perform better in reading tests than those who do not, but also develop a broader vocabulary, increased general knowledge and a better understanding of other cultures.
Hi Jacqueline, thanks for sharing your comment! I couldn’t agree more with you!
Learning to read is about listening and understanding, as well as working out what is printed on the page. Through hearing stories, children are exposed to a wide range of words. This helps them build their own vocabulary and improve their understanding when they listen, which is vital as they start to read.
Please also let us know if there are any other blog topics you would like us to cover in the future or if you have any questions regarding our content.
Ross 🙂