Kids get the picture
IT’S the best career and life hack you can ever gift your child and it all starts with a “reading rocket” from you. The Townsville Bulletin has partnered with Goodstart Early Learning Centres and the Australian Library and Information Service (ALIA) for the annual Raise a Reader campaign – highlighting the need to read with children from birth. It will also amplify Queensland’s First Five Forever literacy program because the first five years after birth are when 90 per cent of brain growth occurs. According to Goodstart general manager pedagogy and practice Sue Robb, you can’t read enough to your children, especially newborns. “We know that sharing books and reading to children help their early communication and acquisition of language, their vocabulary, and also the rhyme and rhythm in books helps their brain and cognitive development,” Ms Robb said. “The more we can engage babies and children in books and literature, the better. It’s such a magic experience.” ALIA chief executive Sue Mckerracher said signing your newborn up for a library card was a free and easy way to provide essential exposure to literature. “Reading as a life skill has never been more important,” Ms Mckerracher said. “Library storytimes are free events that take place regularly, are great fun for the kids and give parents the chance to get together with others. “By taking it up a notch and becoming library members, families can borrow books, take them home and share the fun of reading with their little ones every day. Townsville mum Nicole Bond reads to her daughter Peyton Newmans, 2, as often as possible. “We used to go to the library for baby rhyme time, now I catch her reading to herself,” she said. “She is able to tell a story from the pictures. If I’m cooking she will sit next to me and she will interpret her own story through the pictures.” Ms Bond said reading had made her daughter more inquisitive.