As a family, we love to read. I read, my partner reads, our child reads. In short, we love our books. A lot has been written (and read) about the benefits of reading to children. Why is it, for example, that we read to our babies when we know they don’t understand what we are saying or what we are doing?
Well obviously there are a number of benefits of reading to your children even at such a young age. It teaches them about communication, it introduces concepts such as stories and builds listening, memory, and vocabulary skills. Besides, you wouldn’t wait until your kids could understand how to speak and communicate before talking to them! That would be absurd.
What you might not realize though is that by the time your child reaches their first birthday they will have learned all the sounds needed to speak their native language. And of course it follows that for the most part the more words and sounds your child is exposed to in their first year, the better he or she should be able to talk (when they eventually do).
Anyway, that’s by the by… I wanted to share this particular story with you. It was written by our beautiful daughter (7 years old), and I think it has the makings of a classic. Hans Christian Anderson, watch this space!
The Two Birds
“Once upon a time there lived two birds called April and June. June loved the month June and April loved the month April. The two birds lived in a bird house in a valley. Every morning the two of them would sing a song.
One morning they went for a fly up in the sky, they saw lots of vehicles in the sky like jets and airplanes and hot air balloons. Down below they saw the zoo and there were birds just like them. Then they went back to their little bird house.
When they got home the time was 12.00 so they went to bed and to sleep (editors note: not sure why she thinks 12:00 is bed time, she has an 8pm curfew. Perhaps she’s just “planting the seed”!). When they woke up they went for another fly. This time they just saw birds in the sky and below they saw the zoo.
THE END.”
NB – these are the original pictures she found of the internet and attached to her story.
