Educational Books For Kids: Why They Are Important In Learning Process
Writing and reading are probably the most iconic pair humans have ever come up with. Books expose the mind of adults to information pieces you might never have had access to. But what books do to the minds of kids is mind-blowing (I don’t mean this literally).
The minds of kids are empty canvases waiting to be painted with all sorts of beautiful colors. Their imaginations are fertile and ready to grow any seed of knowledge or information that falls on them. They have the potential to learn anything and everything, from phrases to experiences.
Because of the opportunity that books bring to the table, the importance of educational books for kids should not, and cannot be under-emphasized. Because, whether there are books or not, kids will learn. They always do. But we should point them to the mind-building, educational books now before they learn things which they shouldn’t.
This article sheds light on the importance of educational books for kids’ learning process.
The Benefits of Educational Books For Kids
Before we go far ahead, educational books don’t always have to be books that teach kids how to add 2 to 3 to make 5, or how to spell “book.”
Educational books can be books that teach kids important life lessons in the form of stories and pictures. They can also be books that discuss practical things like learning to garden. So, what benefits do these educational books bring to your kids?
1. Mind Building
When you read educational books to your kids, or when they read the books themselves, they are not only seeing the images and the texts on the book.
They are also having this information imprinted on their minds. Their imaginations are forming vivid images from what you are reading out to them.
When you do this often, kids begin to see books as something more than texts and images. They see books as reliable sources of information that they can always return to when they need to extract more information.
And, whether they like it or not, the idea of how books are a source of information sticks with them till they grow old.
2. Improvement of Cognitive Skills
Cognitive skills, such as how they see the things around them, intelligence, the processing of information, and language development, all receive a boost from educational books.
Educational books encourage kids to become more intelligent, wiser, improve their language skills, and so much more.
The books can serve as a reference with which they see the actual world and teach them how they can better interact with it. The educational books help them interpret the things they see, hear, or sense in the real world.
For instance, a kid who reads how dangerous fire can be would know better than playing too close to the kitchen stove.
3. Understanding Things Better
Educational books can transport kids in the vehicles of their imaginations to different places and different times. They contain information about different people, places, objects, and events from as far back as the dinosaurs to the imaginative citizens of the future.
From them, the understanding of the big world around us develops in their minds. They understand, for instance, what a police officer does, and what makes them different from a firefighter.
4. Empathy Development
Books not only engage the cognitive part of the brain of kids. They also engage the part responsible for feelings and empathy. That is why kids can read books and feel emotions like sadness and happiness for some characters.
As you may well understand, the real world is not all about logical equations, like how 2 plus 2 is always 4. The world is also a hub of emotions and feelings. So, with educational books that tell stories that elicit feelings from them, kids can learn how to empathize with other people and the real world.
A better understanding of simple emotions like joy, happiness, sadness, boredom, and many others, come to them.
This way, they can be able to deduce by themselves how some of their actions might hurt you or their friends, so they refrain from such actions. Conversely, they instinctively understand how some actions make you smile, so they try to do it in their cute little ways.
5. Strengthens Relationships Between Parents and Kids
Reading educational books to your kids is one of the simplest gestures that go a long way in their lives.
When you read to them, you are strengthening whatever bonds you have with them, while allowing them to express their ideas and thoughts. Your voice might even be the one they hear in their heads when they are reading on their own.
In addition to that, kids can benefit from the attention, care, and support that the activity brings to them, which would be more than helpful to them as they grow.
6. Concentration Enhancement
Kids have varying levels of concentration. While some can instinctively sit still and concentrate on events for minutes at a stretch, some others don’t last for 10 seconds before they start itching for something new to do.
But when you train them with the help of educational books to maintain concentration while you read to them, concentrating on other things gets easier for them.
This is not to say, however, that educational books would allow them to concentrate on anything and everything like a Buddhist monk. They are still kids, after all, full of energy and with a low tolerance for anything that is lacking in fun. So try to inject fun more fun into the reading activity. It encourages concentration.
7. Entertainment
Kids don’t like anything boring. They have a lot of energy to expend on anything that interests them. Educational books, especially those that are written in stories with pictures, can often serve as ways to entertain your kids.
You do the reading, their imaginations do the work of transporting them out of the present to the beautiful worlds and scenarios that the educational books open up to them.
8. Better Performance In School
What kids learn in educational books can greatly impact how they perform in school. The educational books do not even have to be related to the subjects they are taught in school. But the cognitive skills they must have gained from the educational books you read to them would improve how they approach other subjects.
The Bottom Line
Those are the miracles educational books perform on the minds and the learning process of kids.
It is important to emphasize that kids learn better when they are having fun. The little ones learn better when there are colorful graphics, as it helps their imaginations.
Try to inject these two in any way you can into their activities and the things you want them to learn.
