Importance of READING to your child:

Hello all,

I have been telling most of the parents to read stories to your child. Some of them parents just convey the lesson from the story, some read from the book without clearing the meaning of the words. Please read this article completely to know what exactly you need to convey and how it will benefit your children.

One of the best ways to help your child become readers is to read to them when they are young. When you read to your very young child you are stimulating electrical signals in the brain that the child will use later when learning to read. Reading to your child also plays an important role in language development.

Let us understand the difference in story telling and story reading. Only a few people can tell a story well or think they can. But almost any person can read to a tiny tot.

When your child hears a story being read, the language he hears is better as a rule, than when the story is told. Besides your child will hear exactly the same words, phrases and sentences repeatedly, when the story is read. This sameness is better for speech development and your little child likes it.

It also calms and quiets your child, fires your child's imagination and stimulates his creativity. Story reading not only broadens your child's knowledge but also given him much to talk and think about enriching his vocabulary. The child also learns to use the right words at the right place and context.

Reading regularly to your child sets new patterns of speech and lead to your child being good at spoken English later.

The pictures in the book attract your child's attention and it also helps the child connect what he hears, with the book.

This also cultivates tenderness towards a book in your child. Eventually your child who has been read stories to, will wish to read books himself. It has been observed that the child who has been read to very early, understands the meaning of words.

By reading stories to your child you cultivate a good habit of listening intently. This ability will be very useful to your child when he goes to school. Perhaps no other training will prove useful to your child as much as being read to constantly from very young age.

Reading to your young child not only gives your child happiness but it is very good for you as parent.

As a parents you need to remember that literacy is created by the emotional bond between a child a book and the person reading. It isn't achieved by the book alone or by the child alone, or by the adult who is reading to the child, it's a relationship between all three, which brings them together in harmony.

Tips to Help Your Children Enjoy Sports

Although after-school sports are a fixture at most schools, recently collected data suggests that the number of children participating in sports is decreasing every year. Below are possible reasons for the downward trend and how you can inspire your children to enjoy sports.

The Verdict Is In

Many kids are moving away from organized sports. What are some reasons that you child might not be interested in playing a sport this season?

1. Too Much Pressure
    Kids like to play with other kids and have fun. But the emphasis on the importance of winning is often paramount to any enjoyment they may get from participating in the sport itself. For parents who live vicariously through their kids, the weight can be crushing.
2. Negative Feedback
    Every game played is something that your child can be proud of, regardless of whether or not their team wins. Constant negative feedback is not an incentive to keep playing your best – it’s a quick way to inspire stress, shame, and anxiety in your child’s approach to playing sports and staying active.
3. Exhaustion
    Practices and games can be long and exhausting for children, especially after a long day at school. Running kids into the ground is detrimental to both their minds and their bodies. While it’s important to instill the practice of an active lifestyle in your kids, it’s also important to make sure that your kids live a balanced life.
4. Lack of Interest
    Not all kids are cricket players or skaters or artists. Get to know your child and what sincerely interests them. Figuring out what sports and activities are truly enjoyable for them will help them to become more individualized and happy beings.
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How To Help Your Kids Enjoy an Active Lifestyle 

Here are some ways to gently coax your kids into lifelong enjoyment of group activities.

1. Pep Talk
    Kids put a lot of pressure on themselves to perform. Ease their anxiety by encouraging them to always do their best but reminding them that winning isn’t the only thing that matters. Stress that they’re there to have fun and not to take themselves too seriously.
2. Positive Feedback
    Support your kid whether they win or lose. Cheer for them and be positive about their game performance.
3. Practice Is Not Bootcamp
    Talk to your child’s coach if you think they’re going overboard. While learning discipline and dedication through playing organized sports is perfectly acceptable, your kids are playing sports to be active and have fun. Your child should not be too tired to function regularly in school, do homework, spend time with family and friends, and do other fun activities. Nor should your child’s coach treat his players like they’re recruits.
4. Encourage Time Away
    Sports take up a lot of time. Find ways throughout the week for your kids to do other things that they enjoy. The summertime is a particularly opportune time to introduce your kids to new activities that aren’t available during the school year.

Source: Childdevelopmentinfo

Play is the work of the child:

Play activities are essential to healthy development for children and adolescents. Research shows that 75% of brain development occurs after birth. The activities engaged in by children both stimulate and influence the pattern of the connections made between the nerve cells. This process influences the development of fine and gross motor skills, language, socialization, personal awareness, emotional well-being, creativity, problem solving and learning ability.

The most important role that play can have is to help children to be active, make choices and practice actions to mastery. They should have experience with a wide variety of content (art, music, language, science, math, social relations) because each is important for the development of a complex and integrated brain. Play that links sensori-motor, cognitive, and social-emotional experiences provides an ideal setting from brain development.

According to Montessori, the essential dimensions of play are:

• Voluntary, enjoyable, purposeful and spontaneous
• Creativity expanded using problem solving skills, social skills, language skills and physical skills
• Helps expand on new ideas
• Helps the child to adapt socially
• Helps to thwart emotional problems

If play is the work of the child, toys are the tools. Through toys, children learn about their world, themselves, and others. Toys teach children to:

• Figure out how things work
• Pick up new ideas
• Build muscle control and strength
• Use their imagination
• Solve problems
• Learn to cooperate with others
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Play content should come from the child’s own imagination and experiences.

Unfortunately, the play experience for today’s child is often quite different from that of their parents.

With the ever expanding influence of electronic media including TV, videos, video games and the internet, child are spending much of their time being passively entertained by or minimally interacting by way of a keyboard or control pad with an electronic device.

Even today’s toys are more often structured by onboard computers that dictate the play experience.  This robs children of unstructured play with other kids as well as individual playtime spent in creative play. Parents need to understand the play needs of their child and provide an environment to meet those needs.

Source: childdevelopmentinfo