As a parent, you obviously want the best for your children. Sure, this means having a good home with loving parents, fun toys, lots of friends, and nutritional food too.
However, one of the most important things that children need, particularly at a young age, is a solid education and the basic building blocks to become successful in life, especially as an adult.
Something you probably know is that to be successful in life, literacy is one of the deciding factors. Generally speaking, with increased literacy skills also comes greater success in life.
Being able to read and write is very important, and not only for landing that dream job, but also for communication.
Now, you might be wondering, how do reading skills help to improve communication? There are seven main ways in which reading skills can directly help to improve communication skills with other people.
Today, we want to discuss how reading and communication are connected, and the benefits your children can gain by learning to read at an early age, such as from the Children Learning Reading educational program.
How do Reading Skills Help Improve Communication
1. An Increase in Vocabulary
One way in which reading skills affect overall communication is through the vocabulary that children learn, and this is true for adults just as it is for children.
If you know more words, you will be able to communicate your thoughts and ideas to others.
Often, people don’t communicate their ideas and opinions, at least not as well as they could, due to having a very limited vocabulary.
If you don’t know the right words to communicate you won’t effectively be able to get your point across to others.
A lot of this has to do with knowing technical terms and complicated words, ones that are very precise in their meaning. If you cannot be precise with your speech, people likely won’t be able to grasp the full extent of what you are trying to say.
2. A Stronger, Faster, and Better Brain
Another way in which reading skills directly translate to better communications skills is by training the brain. It has been shown that keeping the brain challenged helps to exercise it and improve its overall functionality.
Just like you have to exercise your muscles to make them bigger, stronger, and faster, so do you need to exercise the brain to achieve the same results.
Mental stimuli, such as reading, helps to quicken the brain’s response time. Keeping the brain challenged allows it to better make connections between abstract points, to solve problems, and to improve general cognitive abilities.
Studies show that constant mental challenges help to build and maintain an increased number of brain cells, and it helps to maintain solid connections between the various cells and neurons; if your brain is faster, you will be better able to think on your feet, which at the end of the day results in clearer, faster, and better communication.
3. They Allow Us to Better Understand Others
When it comes to communication, it’s not just all about what you say and how you say it, but also about how you understand others.
So, if you are wondering how reading skills help improve communication, another point is that reading skills help you better understand what others are trying to communicate to you.
If you cannot clearly understand what other people are saying, you cannot possibly be expected to communicate with them in a meaningful way. In order for you or your children to formulate a clear, well-articulated, and intelligent response to others, being able to first understand the points others are making is crucial.
By building vocabulary, critical thinking skills, and more, something that the Children Learning Reading program does very well, understanding others becomes much easier.
4. They Provide Us with Information for Conversation
Yet another way in which reading skills directly affect communication is through simple education. Every time you, your kids, or anybody reads a book or even a small passage, hopefully something will be learned. In other words, when you read, most of the time, you will learn something.
Whether it be about animals, science, technology, the environment, or anything in between, learning new information is always valuable.
Having a broader knowledge base is important in many facets of life, and communication is one of those facets. If nothing else, learning through reading will give you more to say to others, and when you have more to say, you will be more inclined to speak.
5. Being Able to Make a Solid Point
As you may be able to notice by now, the benefits of reading skills are related to communication skills.
Each of the points we are making build on the previous points.
Speaking of points, if you have a broad vocabulary, if you can think on your feet, if you can better understand others, and if you have a broader knowledge base, this will also lead you to being able to make arguments better, or to get a point across.
All of the skills we have talked about up until now allow for clearer and more precise communication. A big part of communication is debate and arguing your side of the argument.
Being able to convince others of your point of view is a huge part of effective communication. If you can’t make clear and concise arguments, people won’t listen to what you have to say.
6. Increasing Self-Confidence
There are various studies which show that reading skills are directly related to self-confidence; people who have broader vocabularies, broader bases of knowledge, and better argumentative skills tend to be more self-confident.
Top-notch reading skills will make you feel smart, and when you feel smart, you should also feel much more confident.
Confidence is then directly related to communication, because if you are to communicate with others, you need to be confident enough to do so.
People who are lacking in self-confidence often won’t communicate, or at least not as well and as much as they should, simply due to being afraid to do so.
7. Improved Focus and Memory
The final way in which reading skills help to improve communication is by bettering your focus and memory.
It has been shown that reading skills, particularly when children learn to read at a young age, directly affect the brain’s ability to focus, to concentrate, and to remember.
When it comes to communication, all of these things are very important.
After all, you cannot be expected to hold a lengthy conversation or to engage in an in-depth argument if you cannot focus on the major talking points, if you cannot concentrate on your conversation partner, and if you cannot remember what was said a few minutes before.
Conclusion
The bottom line is that reading skills directly affect communication skills. Therefore, the earlier children learn to read, the better they will be able to communicate with the people around them.
This is all very important for many different facets of life, whether it be for finding a romantic partner, finding a dream job, or just for holding basic conversations.
