Table of Contents
Are you fond of Stories?
Stories are a powerful means of communication and learning for any age group.
In the early years, listening to stories enables cognitive, social and emotional development. With times, the traditional storytellers like grandparents and for some even mothers are not accessible enough. Technology has stepped in to fill these gaps to some extent.
How exactly has technology done that?
The read-along feature has been a boon for young parents and their children. One can find a variety of story books – short story books, picture story books, etc. The best short stories for toddlers are the ones with a read along feature which enables the child to learn to read and create an understanding of his surroundings in a more engaging way.
Each one of us has a story to tell. Our fondness for stories has a lot to do with the way we have been brought up.
“How important are stories in our life?”
Let us understand:
Stories form a very important part of the early influences for an individual. It is a way to form our first emotional connection with the world. For a toddler who is just about to start taking his first steps even though not completely independently and a bit unsteadily, listening to stories leads to his cognitive, social and emotional development.
It is a very critical phase for the parents to provide him with emotional security. The communication between the toddler and the parents during this phase is key to the child’s development as an individual. Stories play a very important role in the child’s early development. It is popularly said that a good start is half the battle won. Stories are a means to gain that good start in our lives.
Schools or preschools are an important part of the child’s early engagements. Our children start their formal education as early as 2 years and the early childhood education does make use of stories as a medium of teaching. There is a researched approach to why stories as used as a tool for teaching.
What are the benefits of storytelling in preschool?
To point out a few:
- The child learns the basics of language
- He acquires basic communication skills
- Stories can spark the imagination power within a child
- It also introduces him with new ideas about the world around him
But beyond schooling, it is parents that need to fulfill the child’s needs to understand and experience the world around them. The parents or guardians need to take up the role of a teacher. Not all parents can manage time and enthusiasm of narrating stories to children. This is where books play a very important part.
Why reading is important in early years?
Cognitive development is taken care in the schooling phase of a child’s life. But social and emotional development is more dependent on the kind of environment that the child is exposed to at his home or the immediate surroundings. The child may learn alphabets and basic form of communication at school, but the real values, that of tolerance, patience, empathy and much more is gained through his social interactions beyond school. Reading and listening to stories can be another platform to learn such values. These values help the child improve his understanding of his relationship with the world around him. Reading can definitely contribute to a great extent in developing a child’s emotional intelligence.
You can find a variety of simple bedtime stories for toddlers and moral stories for toddlers by various publishers. But the most important question that parents face is “how to make storytelling interesting?” Schools do make use of pictures, toys and other props to make storytelling more engaging for children. There is a need to create specific content that will meet a child’s basic cognitive, social and emotional development needs.
The best story books for toddlers are the ones with a read along feature. The read along feature enables the child to learn to read and create an understanding of his surroundings in a more engaging way.
Our earlier generations had grandparents to take up the role of storytellers. Some kids still enjoy the privilege of having their grandparents around in their early years. But some may not have that kind of exposure. This is where the read along feature, which is not plain text reading but rather creating an experience beyond words. The child feels having entered a world of his own. Such features have a very positive influence on the child’s mind and thought process and that has been scientifically proven. The child understands the importance of focusing on what is being read or told to him.
We have created some bedtime stories for toddlers with pictures, since pictures in themselves are storytellers. Pictures play an important role in stimulating imagination in the child. Pictures of popular animated characters are even more engaging and so we have created some stories of famous animated characters. Along the same lines, mythological characters also play an important part in sparking curiosity among the child. To fulfill the child’s urge to know more about our history, we have created short mythological stories for kids.
We have tried to empower all these books with the read along feature. We have provided a QR code on the product page of these books as well as the back covers of physical copies of the book. Upon scanning the QR code, you will get free access to the read along feature. The child can hold the book in his hands and learn to follow the narration. The parent needs to stay along with the child to give a wholesome storytelling experience to the child. It is an engaging medium even for elders.
These days parents are concerned about increased screen time for kids due to the conveniences offered by technology. The content is useful but it is a short-term solution to engage the kids. Storytelling is something that beats all the technological conveniences and creates a long-term emotional bond between the parent and the child. That is the ultimate goal.
Every parent wants to offer the best possible upbringing to his child. Books have been a great companion of parents since ages and it will continue to do so even if the forms in which books are made available keeps evolving. The read-along feature is part of this evolution and it is going to play a very important part in carrying on the legacy of story-telling and building even stronger bonds between the parent and the child.
Check out our collection of books for Toddlers
Read related posts here: https://www.understood.org/en/articles/8-tips-to-help-young-kids-develop-good-reading-habits
Check out our recent posts here – https://storybooksforyou.com/how-to-develop-reading-habit-in-students/