Shortly before bedtime – the three-year-old daughter sits on your lap, directs her gaze to the colorful pictures and listens intently to the story. In many families, reading aloud in the evening is a ritual. Often there is the favorite book to be read over and over again. But in times of freely accessible videos, radio plays and songs via digital media, are books actually still up to date?
Reading aloud in general is enormously important for children’s language development. When you read stories to your child and you look at and talk about the pictures together, your child’s vocabulary also expands. In the process, it also learns words it doesn’t necessarily hear otherwise, e.g. in books that tell about sea creatures or about life on a farm. When reading aloud, your child develops a sense of the structure of language.
Reading aloud also has a positive effect on your child’s imagination. Telling stories and sharing them encourages your child to think up and imagine their own worlds.
The decisive factor in reading aloud is above all the exchange and the closeness to you. This can also be made when using a tablet instead of a book to read aloud. You can use your fascination with digital media to make reading appealing, especially to older children. Digital reading worlds often work with interactive elements that can arouse children’s interest and stimulate their imagination. So there is a lot of potential in them that you can use as parents.
Picture book apps such as “Fiete” or “Milli and her friends” also expand the reading experience in a special way. A list of recommended apps can be found at Stiftung Lesen. In addition to apps, there are also special children’s websites that specialize in read-aloud stories,such as Amira. There are also books that digitally extend their stories (e.g. B. What happened here?). This can be a great way to combine offline and online worlds in a meaningful way.
It’s important to consciously choose which digital adventure your child might enjoy. The timing of use should also be considered. So an interactive read-aloud adventure before bedtime might be too exciting for your child. The bright screen and flickering elements may prevent your child from sleeping peacefully afterwards. Instead, reach for an (analog) book that your child already knows and finds reassuring.
For more tips on digital read-aloud formats, visit Stiftung Lesen.
Always remember: both classic and digital reading worlds have their advantages and disadvantages – it’s all in the mix!
For you and your three-year-old daughter, reading her a story every day before she goes to sleep is part of the routine? Your children have been looking forward to the “Sendung mit der Maus” on Sunday mornings all week? Such rituals are often unspoken, fixed appointments that become naturalized over time. There are typical media rituals, but they can also look different in each family.
Using media together with family is a nice way to spend time together. The whole family looks forward to the weekend movie night together. Children really fever for it, also because the event is often associated with exceptions, such as delicious food on the sofa. You snuggle up and talk about the movie afterwards.
Regular skyping with the grandparents is also a highlight for everyone. Despite the often long distance, people feel close to each other.
Rituals don’t always have to be associated with a fixed date: Listening to music together as father and daughter can also be a regular media event that connects in a special way.
Media rituals can structure a family’s daily routine: When the Sandman plays on the tablet every evening or a book is read aloud, your child knows that it’s almost time for bed. Children and even still adolescents are thus offered a framework of the daily routine that gives them security. Media rituals can also serve as an incentive: If the teeth are brushed in the evening before the favorite series or the favorite audio book and the pajamas are put on, there is still time for two episodes!
Family time together is always valuable. There’s nothing wrong with creating shared moments with media like a TV, tablet or game console. Often the medium then plays only a supporting role anyway. It is important to take time for each other and experience things together. Media rituals also create free space for you as parents: You work off the news or relax after a hard day at work while your child watches Sandman or listens to Benjamin Blümchen.
However, make sure that tablets and such do not replace a babysitter or you as a parent. Joint family times in which media do not play a role are at least as important as times with media. Shared experiences like a trip to the pool or zoo are sure to do you as much good as your child!
