UGH that book again? Why you should reread your child’s favorite book (again) to develop their language skills
While it may drive you crazy, when kids listen to the same story multiple times, they pick up new information, dive deeper into the meaning of the book, and make connections between themselves and the book as well as between the book and other books they've heard.
Language Development: Read books that offer a lot of repeated lines and phrases. As you are reading, let your child fill in some blanks. Eventually, they may be able to say sentences (or the whole story!)
Vocabulary: Research with 3-year-olds shows those who repeatedly rereading books (5+ times) increased their vocabulary more than those who read a large variety of books. Kids with a large choice of texts also improved, but not as much as those with multiple exposures to the same text.
Put the research to work: Rotate through a smaller variety of books. Once you’ve hit 5 exposures, rotate something new in. Follow your child’s lead and if they want to read a new book, go for it. If they are disinterested in a book, ditch it for now.
Phonemic awareness: Rereading books strengthens an understanding of the pattern, rhythm and pronunciation. Developing a deeper understanding of phonemic awareness involves identifying, hearing and manipulating separate sounds in words, an important early stage of learning to read.
Answering questions: As a key reading strategy for comprehension, rereading books provides an opportunity to learn how to ask and answer questions.
“Who is this?”
“What is happening here?”
“Where will they go?”
“What will happen next?”
“Why is he doing that?”
Over time, this practice will allow your child to answer more complex and elaborative questions and offer judgments and opinions.