From birth, babies and children are gathering skills they will use in reading. The years between ages 3 and 5 are critical to reading growth. Put simply, the best way to instill a love for and interest in reading is to simply read to your child.
When do you start? As soon as you want to. You can start reading to your baby, teach them the routine of spending time with you flipping through colourful pages of a book and hearing your voice fluctuate as you read to them.
By about six to twelve months, babies start to get interested in books as toys to examine and manipulate. Expose them to cloth or board books with things like flaps, textures like a bit of fur or rubber on the page, crinkle pages or electronic buttons to keep their interest. Allow them to take the book, handle it on their own, and explore it. Engage with them as they “read it” to you.
Your toddler will need different topics. Kids this age are graduating to real stories with simple plots. They can handle a short story with a villain and a happy ending. This level of book tends to have three or four sentences per page. If your toddler is into a certain interest such as science, space, dinosaurs, monster trucks, animals, etc, then focus on reading them books of that kind.
Overall, we know that repetition works best for toddlers to learn. So do songs, rhymes and repetitive phrases. Look for stories with rhymes and phrases to catch your toddler’s attention. As a result, expect that your toddler may have a favorite story that she/he requests all the time.
If you have an active toddler who has no interest in sitting still for story time, try getting a more interactive book—lift the flap or pull the tab ones, or electronic ones that make sounds when you push a button are great to keep them involved.
Enjoy reading with your children. You will create a special bond between you and your child that you’ll always treasure. Children want nothing more than to learn about the world around them, and books are a great way to introduce them to everything from basic concepts to big emotions.
