Children's Books Blog: How To Choose The Right Children’s Book

Choosing the right children’s book for your child can have a significant impact on your child’s life. A study published in Psychological Science in 2016 shows that reading from children’s picture books improves your child’s vocabulary more than ordinary conversation. This is because words used in picture books are new and less limited than what’s available in ordinary conversation. Not only are children’s books a way to develop your child’s vocabulary but it’s also a good moment to develop your child’s morality, virtues, and values. What your child learns early on in life can impact his or her life as the child grows up.

However, the problem with many of today’s children’s books is that they contain very few lessons that are relevant to preparing your child for the future (see our article on the 18 Dangerous Trends In Children’s Health for some problems you should prepare your child against). Many of today’s children’s books are not geared towards your child’s development in important areas such as emotional intelligence and health awareness, this is why it’s important to take extra effort to choose the right book.

When choosing the right children’s book for your child consider these:

The age of your child – a child 0-12 months old will not understand your words yet however they will love listening to the sound of your voice. It’s good to start reading to your child as early as you can so they begin recognizing different sounds. They will learn new words by 12 to 18 months and as they grow to 24 months they begin to notice more and more details in the picture books. That’s why you want to make sure that they use books that have vivid colourful pictures that they enjoy looking at. By the time they reach 2 years old they now know enough to understand the flow of the story and what’s going to happen next so you want a story book that has a sequence of events. At 3 to 4 years old they will have higher attention span and they will recognize humorous situations so choose fun books that make them laugh. By age 5 to 6 they will already memorize some of the books that you read to them and they can tell you what happened in the story. They can answer if you ask them what lesson is in the story so it’s important to teach them stories with moral lessons early on.
The moral lesson, virtues, and values taught in the book – in today’s time, it has become even more important to teach your children important values of family, friendship, compassion, kindness, and caring for one another. Children should also learn emotional intelligence, health awareness, and positive mindset as early on in life. There are a lot of children’s books that do not address these areas even though they are fun to read and they make your child laugh however they lack the virtues and values that will guide your child as he or she grows up. Children of today have lower self-esteem, are more depressed, and are getting sicker and sicker at such early ages with diseases that should not appear in children in the first place. In our previous article we talked about the steps to counter these problems in The 9 Ways To Keep Your Child Healthy And Restore Their Health.
Consider what are the problems that most children will face as they grow up – will this book prepare your child in a positive nurturing way for the challenges that they will face growing up? Will it build strong foundations for your child? Some areas you can prepare them for are:

Morality, Values And Compassion
Valuing Family And Friends
Health, Nutrition, And Exercise
Caring For The Environment
Strengthening Their Emotional Intelligence
Developing Their Self-Esteem And Self-Confidence
Preparing Them To Be Successful In Life

Now you might think that it’s difficult to find a children’s book that fits all these but that’s not necessarily the case. There are children’s adventure books with health and moral lessons like The Academy For Health Superheroes first book called “The Heart” that teach kids to value family and friends, teach about moral lessons, while focusing about health and the environment and building the emotional intelligence.

The quality of time that you share together. What’s more important than just reading the book is to share quality time together. Every moment that you spend reading to your child is an investment in his or her future. The more you read or talk to your child, the more vocabulary and comprehension will increase.
Free vs. Paid Children’s Books. There are free children’s books on the internet and there are also paid. The free ones usually have lower quality in terms of visuals or they are in the public domain because they’re old stories that are no longer applicable. You should be willing to invest a small amount to get your child started with the right sotires.

Here are some tips when reading a children’s book to your child:

Repetition improves memory, reading the children’s book several times helps your child develop vocabulary. The more you repeat reading the children’s book, the more you will notice that they will mimic your words. As time passes, they will be able to follow your words more and more.
Do it consistently, whether it’s each day or 3 times a week. Find a time of day that you can read the book together and soon they will look forward to that same time every day. Soon your child will be begging you to read the children’s book to them.
Repeat the core lessons at the start and end of each reading session. Whether you say to your child “Eat healthy food” or “Exercise to be healthy” or “Family is important” or “Love one another” it’s important to repeat the core lessons at the start and end of each reading session. Your child will begin to grasp the words and start repeating them back even though they may not fully understand it immediately but you’ll be surprised at your child’s growth.
Be willing to pause the reading to respond to your child’s questions. Your child will usually have a lot of questions throughout the story as they look at the pictures and they may point to something in the picture and ask “What’s that? What’s this?” it’s important to respond to those questions to keep your child engaged. Children’s book reading is not only a passive activity but an interactive activity between you and your child.
Ask Them Questions. It’s also important to ask your kids questions to make the process interactive. This will allow you to gauge their comprehension and progress of learning.

Choose The Children’s Book That Will Leave A Positive Legacy In Your Child’s Life

What values you pass on to your child will serve as an important legacy and he or she will someday look back to those lessons that you taught him or her. Be willing to invest time and effort as you read the children’s book to your child. It’s an excellent bonding time as a family and parents should treat it as such.

Why Start Your Child With The Academy For Health Superheroes?

The Academy For Health Superheroes Books teach your child many valuable lessons. In this book, you will journey with the health superheroes Agnes and David who help their friend whose dad has become sick. In almost 200 pages of colourful illustrations and brief but informative text, the team of health superheroes go on a journey to find the six masters that will teach your kids about important health and life lessons. After learning from each master, the superheroes return to their friend to help their friend’s dad as well as their friend’s entire family using these important lessons that they’ve learned. They face against the Junk Food Monster and the nasty habits who keep trying to make their friend’s family sicker and sicker. The book includes the story book that you can read aloud to your child as well as interactive questions that you can ask your child after every few pages, which makes the process simpler and any parent can just follow the ready-made activities. Read more about The Academy For Health Superheroes Book 1 here.

You can also check out the free children’s book on the homepage to get a feel for what the entire book is like. You can try reading that to your child and see how he or she respond after a few days of repeated reading.

Here’s What Some Parents And Teachers Are Saying About The Book

“A great example of how to deliver key messages to promote an active life and healthy habits for the little ones and a good reminder for the big. Easy to read with eye-catching images that will surely make our kids become part of the story. Highly recommended!” - Amazon Customer

“Brilliant book with colourful and vivid fun illustrations. I bought this for my 6 year old niece and ended up reading it when it arrived. it is presented in a fun and educational way and really makes learning about health, fitness, and nutrition fun, connecting the relationship between good health and happiness. Looking forward to part 2.” – Erik

“Fantastic book for health conscious parents like us to read to our kids. It's so important to instill good habits about food and exercise from an early age. The colourful and fun illustrations captured my son's attention immediately.” - Julian

“Lovely children's book, cool pictures, and best: a strong message. As health is not the absence of disease but being able to live life in optimal physical, emotional and mental states (and more), we have to rewire our way of thinking about health. With this book for children, you're helping your kids to start early and to make the life for them much better. It doesn't only give you info about our body, a healthy diet, and regular exercise, it also includes aspects of inner qualities such as compassion, patience, and mindfulness - a self-development book for kids. Kids, you'll get to know little girl Agnes, who wants to learn about healthy and happy living. She starts an academy for health superheroes and saves the life of a family.” – Serey

Children's Books Blog

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

How To Choose The Right Children’s Book

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