One of the most important things a parent or teacher can do to help children learn is to encourage them to read. When children start to read, they get exposed to new information and new ideas. They find out about people and places in countries they’ve never visited, and get inspiration from the accomplishments of scientists, explorers, and even other children like them. No matter what the child’s age is, there will be hundreds and thousands of books available to them at school, in the library, and on line. There’s no better way to stimulate a child’s curiosity than by bringing them a book on a topic that interests them, especially if you talk with them about it afterwards. Your interest and enthusiasm is often the best reward for the work they put into reading the book.

On a more practical level, children will quickly learn new vocabulary through reading, and they won’t even feel like they’re studying. They’ll get practice in figuring out a word’s definition by looking at how it’s used in context, but if they can’t get the meaning right away, be sure that you’re there to help them find the resources that they need to look up words. Each new vocabulary word builds on the previous words learned. These new words will also provide the stimulation children need to think about new ideas.

While they’re using their new vocabulary to read increasingly complicated books, children learn the skills of writing well, just by observing how words are used by the authors of the texts they’re reading. They’ll unconsciously absorb the principles of good writing, and will naturally apply those principles to their own writing. They’ll also be absorbing the correct spellings of the words they see, and memorizing the shapes of the words, which will help them remember the way they’re spelled. It’s well known that the more times someone sees an image, the better able they are to remember that image exactly. The same principle holds for spelling – if a child sees a word spelled correctly multiple times, they’ll automatically memorize it.

Perhaps the best thing about introducing children to books and reading as something fun is that they’ll continue to see it as fun, and be more willing to spend time at it. Think about the difference between telling a child to spend an hour reviewing vocabulary and spelling lists, and inviting them to spend an hour reading. Which do you think they’ll want to do? If at first they’re reluctant to read on their own, try to spend time reading with them. Research has shown that children whose parents and teachers read out loud to them generally read more on their own as well. And if a child doesn’t want to read things they think might be “boring” then pick a book about their favorite hobby, or a graphic novel, or even a comic book. Once you show children that reading is fun, they’ll start to choose books on their own.

Cross-posted at the Ultimate Spelling blog.