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Book Recommendation Resource

Do you struggle finding new and exciting books for your child? Do you want to ensure you are choosing very good books with high educational value for your child?

The Canadian Children’s Book Centre has launched a new searchable database of books chosen for kids–from toddler to teen–by teachers, librarians and other children’s books experts. You can visit the database here and read more about the launch here.

How helpful will this be for finding the ideal book present?!

Study shows afternoon sleep benefits young children’s learning

An experimenter reads to a child at the WORD Lab.

An experimenter reads to a child at the WORD Lab.

Reading to your toddler before their nap significantly enhances their learning, according to new University of Sussex research. […] children who had been read the same story before their nap performed significantly better than those who hadn’t had a sleep.

Significantly, those children who had been read three different stories before their sleep performed 33 per cent better than those who had stayed awake after hearing those stories. On subsequent tests, the researchers found the wakeful ones never caught up with their peers in word recall.

Read more here (and read the paper here).

“Again, again!” Why repetition in reading helps children learn more

Children who demand the same story to be read to them over and over again may be learning more than those who get a different story every time. […]

“This research suggests that it’s not the number of books, but the repetition of each book that leads to greater learning.  We know that children who watch the same TV programme over and over again do better in comprehension tests afterwards. What we think is happening with reading is that each time a child hears the book they are picking up new information. The first time it might just be the story, the second time they are noticing details of description, and so on. If the new word is introduced in a variety of contexts –  as happened with those who were read three different stories – children are less likely to focus on the new word.”

Read more here. (Read the paper here.)