Educational Books for Kids
- Encourage Your Children to Read
More Educational Books:
"Why is the Sky Blue?" "Where did the dog come from?" "What happens if…?" Anyone who's been around kids in a supervisory role understands the importance of these questions. It's not just that the child is looking for answers from you, but these questions – "Why, where and what" are your child's attempts at fitting the world into a logical framework, and are the keys to encouraging your child to read, manipulate abstract concepts, and take the first steps in success in life.
Encouraging them is the key to successful parenting in this modern, ever more connected world, and the best way to encourage your children in this, is with age appropriate educational activity books.
Educational Activity and Board Books
Picking the right educational activity book is also appropriate. For infants and toddlers, activity books start out as coloring and sticker books, then move on to structured stories. These books provide you with a wonderful opportunity to interact with your child, letting them build hand eye and fine motor coordination, and letting them be sponges for concepts like sharing, and friends and playing nice with each other.
Best of all, they're usually short, and very simple, the better to work with the short attention spans of the under-four set. One drawback or advantage to them, depending on your perspective, is that the vast majority of educational books in this age range are tied to TV and media properties, such as film releases, or children's programming from Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon.
Educational Books for Children (Ages 4-8)
For children who are slightly older – ages 4 to about 8, in the first three grades of school, the books will be more closely aligned to actually reading as the primary activity. Be very aware of what reading level your child is at, and be sure to read the books with them, one step at a time. This is a good chance to practice phonics (sounding out words), and asking them questions about what they're reading. Best of all, these books range from simple stories, to biographies to books on natural history. This is a great time to try out different books to see what catches your child's inner obsessive learner.
A related type of educational book for this age bracket includes books of mathematics exercises, and flash card drills. In particular, look for math books and the like that do a mixture of skills repetition, and some story telling about the way certain mathematical things were developed. The skills repetition will help your child prepare for school, and reinforce what's going on in the classroom, while the history of mathematics will give them the context for figuring out further mathematical items in the future. Without browbeating your child, the goal is to encourage logical thinking.
Kids' Educational Books (Ages 9-12)
Ages 9 through 12 or 13 are where children first start to assert their independence. This is the age at which they'll want to read and learn and do things on their own, and educational books for this age will help them on that journey, focusing on more in depth displays of information, and tying in to more adult subjects. Also, at this age is when Young Adult fiction really starts to earn its appeal.
Working with educational books for kids will help your children take the first steps towards an inquisitive and successful future.
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