Top 7 Core Skills for Reading Success in School

1. Cognitive Skills
2. Language Skills
3. Vocabulary
4. Discipline and Concentration
5. Creativity and Imagination
6. Self-esteem
7. Social Awareness

Let’s dive in to learn about each one of them.

According to the Encyclopedia of Children’s Health, cognitive development is the construction of thought processes, including problem-solving, memory, and decision-making. The development begins in childhood and continues from adolescence to adulthood.  Cognitive skills determine how a person thinks and perceives their world through intelligence, processing, language development, memory, reasoning, and attention span.

Reading to your child from an early age introduces them to phonics, which helps them connect written words with sounds of spoken language. This process improves your child’s ability to listen and communicate effectively. In addition, reading further develops students’ analytical and critical thinking skills that persist throughout their lives.

Reading aloud to children builds their language acquisition, social, literacy, and communication skills. Introducing your child to early reading stimulates a part of their brain that allows them to comprehend language and build significant literacy and social skills. 

A recent brain scan study correlated reading aloud for young children with improved visual imagery and comprehension of language.  When you read to young children, you introduce them to new words that eventually connect to real life.

One of the most common ways to improve children’s language skills is by reading slowly and with expressions and emphasizing new words, so your child will understand better how they are used in sentences.

Yes, reading is crucial to expanding your child’s vocabulary.

Reading exposes your child to a more extensive vocabulary, and the words children come across in books eventually become part of their speech.

Vocabularies play a significant role in your child’s academic success and make them better communicators.

The more your child reads, the more exposed to new words and vocabulary.  Before incorporating them in their speech, they associate sounds with definitions and phrases.

Reading consistently leads to an increase in the child’s focus, discipline, and concentration. This skill has been proved by countless researchers in different languages and cultures around the globe.

Young children rarely have opportunities to sit still, therefore, finding it hard to focus in many cases. However, introducing them to reading brings a change to their behavior.  

Toddlers may become distracted when reading a story, but with time they begin to stay put through the reading season. Reading comprehension requires a longer attention span, higher memory retention, and more vital self-discipline. 

All these characteristics are essential to the child’s future learning.

Children are born with the ability to imagine things and dream big.  Reading aloud plays a significant role in helping your child use their imagination as they explore places, people, events, and time.

Developing imaginative activities while reading opens the doors for children to new worlds and make-believe worlds, like talking to animals. It widens the child’s imagination causing them to be more creative and dream more prominent, necessary traits for their future success. 

Yes, a good reader creates joy and expands knowledge.

Building confidence in a child by enriching their vocabulary, understanding, and playing with words spills over to their writing and speaking skills.

The boost happens when children are exposed to more information from an early age and are more open and creative, giving them high self-esteem. They also comprehend future subjects such as Math, History, Social Study, Sciences, and more.

When your child reads storybooks, magazines, and articles, they get an opportunity to travel to different parts of the four corners of the world, different periods, and learn about other cultures and mannerisms.

Reading also exposes your child to different backgrounds, cultures, and characters hence learning how to handle different life experiences. By learning how various people lived historically and how languages were once spoken, by understanding nuance within speech, such as contracted speeches, colloquialisms, and slang.