1. The value of reading & writing

Background

This section is intended to develop your understanding of the wider benefits of being literate and to develop your capacity to design and lead activities for this purpose. 

Everyone knows that literacy helps with schoolwork but it also offers wide benefits for well-being.  Through reading and listening to stories, children and young people develop a wider understanding of the world and of how others think and live. This strengthens their understanding of who they are and how they fit into the world.  As they read about  characters in stories children are exposed to different ways of reacting and are encouraged to think about the causes and consequences of events and about the emotional lives of others.

Reading and listening to stories also develops children’s intellectual capacity. It widens their knowledge of the world, which helps reading comprehension and knowledge retention.  It also develops vocabulary and the ability to use language in sophisticated ways to think about ideas.

Reduce stress – position reading as playful

Some children find reading stressful; they have already learned to think about it as work rather than pleasure and some do not see themselves as successful readers. The answer is to reduce the pressure and stop children from feeling that reading and writing are performances that are “judged”. Instead make activities playful and delight in the ideas and thoughts that come out of reading and writing.

Reading and mental well-being

Reading and listening to stories can promote wellbeing.  In this clip Vivienne Smith explains how reading provides a “space” away from the world and helps them to think about how others live. When they identify with characters who have a range of emotions, it helps children and young people recognize that they are not alone in the world.

Reading and listening to stories prompts a really important shift in how young children attend to language. It helps them to use language to talk about abstract thoughts and about experiences that are not of the ‘here and now’.