Thursday 2nd April is International Children’s Book Day

Since 1967, International Children’s Book Day has been celebrated on 2nd April every year. This also happens to be the birthday of Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875), the great Danish writer of fairy tales, such as The Little Mermaid.

AE Tuition is passionate about encouraging children to read both modern and more traditional books from the classic canon. This is why we posted a list of traditional classics in December 2014 to get children started. This included links to digital classics for children, which can be downloaded free from Amazon.

These books have been carefully selected from a more comprehensive list that I always recommend to parents for their children to read. As many children now have electronic devices, downloading the books is easy and children can start reading them straight away.

Reading is essential for the development of effective language and communication skills and it is vital that children have an allotted time to read every day. I recommend that children should always read for a short while, every night before the lights go out. Parents can encourage this practice by initially reading to their child and then asking the child to continue reading out loud back to them. Once this routine is in place, many children will adopt the habit of reading for a short while each night before they go to sleep, even after they have read with their parent(s).

Developing excellent language skills is a long and difficult process. It is never too soon for parents to expose their child to exceptional reading material, and reinforce this with regular exercises from well thought-out workbooks.