Reading to your children - at home, or in class

In May 2026, Te Awhi Rito New Zealand Reading Ambassador Alan Kate De Goldi published a blog post titled 'Reading to your children - at home, or in class', available here. Excerpts from the blog post follow:

Why reading aloud matters

The educational and developmental advantages for the child who is read aloud to are now very clear.

Habitually reading nursery rhyme, poetry, folk tale, pūrākau and story — along with conversation and oral stories of your life and the lives of your whānau — is the preeminent way of developing children’s capacity for language and thought. When you read to your children or students, they are experiencing over and over the astonishment of language: the sounds and shapes of words, the satisfactions of rhythm and rhyme, the exhilaration of being able to name what they know and feel, to compare and contrast, to connect. ‘The limits of my language mean the limits of my world,’ wrote the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. When you regularly read and tell stories to children, their word bank grows exponentially; the greater that bank of words, the better their capacity to navigate and understand the world rushing into view.

Reading aloud just for pleasure

Of course, it’s encouraging to know that reading to your child is edifying and educational, but it seems to me just as important to know that reading together can be deeply pleasurable, for both the listening (and looking) child or group and — importantly — for the one reading aloud, too. There are great pluses for a parent or caregiver, older sibling, teacher or librarian in this two-way activity. It is certainly true that just as much as the children being read to, the person reading aloud can experience an enhanced state-of-being.

Additional Information:

• Reading to your children - at home, or in class