Reading with Babies
Babies are born ready to learn
Start reading to your baby at or even before birth. They can understand language long before they are able to talk. Talk to your baby often about what he is seeing, hearing, feeling and doing. Imitate your baby's sounds and smiles to encourage early "conversation."Holding your baby while reading creates a loving bond. Your familiar voice has a calming effect and helps your baby make an association between reading and pleasure.
Reading with Babies
Reading with your baby is a valuable way to spend precious time together. Although your new baby will not understand the words you read, your voice and your cuddling are exactly what your baby needs.Begin sharing books with your baby as soon as you can safely hold the baby and the book at the same time. It is one of the most important things you can do to help your child learn language.
Let your baby explore soft cloth, vinyl or board books. Babies learn by exploring with their mouth - sometimes early reading looks like chewing.
- Point to objects in the book and name them.
- Change your voice as you read aloud and make the sounds of the animals baby sees.
- Ask your baby questions about what's happening on the page, such as, "Where is the duck?" Pause, point and answer for baby, "Oh, look, there's the duck!"
- Respond to your baby's interest. Imitate his responses.
- Improvise! You don't need to read the words as they appear in the book. You can just talk about the pictures.
- Relax and have fun! It's okay if your baby crawls or moves away - she will still hear and benefit from your voice.
What Babies Like in Books
- Board books with photos of babies
- Books with bold, clear pictures of familiar items in baby's world
- Books with rhythm and repetition
- Books with textures or touch and feel books
- Books with animal sounds
- Lullaby books
Tips for reading to infants and toddlers
It's never too soon to start reading to your children! If your child learns early to associate reading with pleasure, she is more likely to enjoy reading on her own when she is older.Try these successful reading tips for reading to infants and toddlers:
- Snuggle with your child with her favorite blanket or toys as you read.
- Read with expression using different voices for different characters.
- Emphasize rhythms and rhymes in stories. Give your toddler opportunities to repeat rhyming phrases.
- Use pictures to build vocabulary by varying objects and their colors.
- Use pictures to develop speaking vocabulary by talking about what is shown.
- Encourage your child to repeat what you say or comment on it. Encourage your child to ask questions. Provide models of interesting questions and examples of possible answers. "I wonder what is going to happen next? I think the rabbit will get lost because he is not paying attention to where he is going. What do you think?"
- Look for books that are about things that interest your toddler. For example, does your child like cars, insects, or animals?
- Make reading a habit for bedtime, after lunch, or after naptime.
- Give your child a chance to choose his own books. If your toddler chooses a book that is too long to hold his attention, read some and skip some, discussing the pictures and how they relate to the story.
- Read stories again and again. Your toddler enjoys repetition and it helps him become familiar with the way stories are organized.
Of course you will not actually be teaching your child to read, instead you will be giving him/her the tools to become a successful reader later.
By reading daily with your infant / preschooler, you will be helping him/her develop:
- A longer attention span, which is needed for learning throughout life
- A larger vocabulary which is very important for reading comprehension and other learning experiences in life
- An eagerness to read
- The ability to predict what will come next, which is important for later success in reading
- Book-handling skills
- A vast storehouse of background knowledge
- Concepts of print
- Knowledge of proper sentence structure
- A bond with you that could last a lifetime
- An attitude that reading is an important part of daily life
- Knowledge of story grammar, which helps reading comprehension
- Reading comprehension strategies
It is a good idea to read the same book every day. Make it a simple one with repeating text and/or noises. You may read more than one, but pick one that you really like and read it daily. Before you know it, your child will be asking for that book. In no time, s/he will be turning the pages at the appropriate times, pretend reading, and correcting you if you make a mistake reading it.
Build your child's vocabulary and background knowledge. Children who enter school with strong vocabularies typically learn 8 new words per day, while children with weak vocabularies learn only 2. This continues week after week, month after month. The stronger the vocabulary, the easier it will be for your child to learn to read, and later the better s/he will be able to understand what s/he reads. Background knowledge is very important because it helps your child better understand what s/he sees, hears, or reads. Many parents don't realize this, but our brains try to attach anything new to old information already in our brains. If the new information can be attached to something old, then we can understand it. That being true, it is critical that we help our children build a vast storehouse of background knowledge upon which new information can be attached. Since I am a reading specialist, I am in a unique position to see what is in widely used elementary level books and to know what is generally taught in school. I also see the things that children typically don't know which can hamper reading comprehension. I spent over 3 years compiling lists of these things and put it in a book to help parents of young children. Parts of Everyday Things and Other Stuff Children Need to Know is a book filled with practical things you can do with your child that will build background knowledge. Click here for more information.
To maximize the effectiveness of your short reading sessions with your infant you should use voice inflections. This will hold his/her attention a little longer (maybe), but it will also slowly, over time, develop an interest and excitement in the process of reading and being read to. Remember, at this stage, you are only laying the foundation for future success in reading.
Be sure your child is comfortable. Since the primary goal in the beginning is to be sure your child associates reading with pleasure, you must first be sure s/he is comfortable, then focus on his/her reactions while you read. There are things to keep in mind before sitting down with your little bundle of joy to read a book. At first, the most important thing to keep in mind is your child's comfort. Be sure s/he isn't too hot or cold, be sure the light isn't shining in his/her eyes, be sure s/he isn't thirsty or hungry. You want your child to associate the reading experience with good feelings. You want it to be a pleasant experience for both of you. If the experience is not pleasant, you will be setting yourself up for failure. If the baby begins to fuss, stop immediately and attend to his/her needs, then try again later. s/he will let you know when s/he is ready to end the session by looking away and perhaps arching his/her back. Stop there! Fussing will follow and will weaken the positiveness of the session. Your child will not realize that you did not finish the book.
Make book-sharing a part of your daily routine from the day your child is born. If you do, your baby will believe that reading is just part of life. It will simply become part of what is done every day. Work towards 3 to 30 minutes accumulated reading time throughout the day. Remember, you are not trying to teach him/her to read, only laying the foundation for later success.
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How do babies learn vocabulary? They learn from hearing a flood of words from their parents through positive conversations and a daily variety of read-alouds. As the read-aloud guru, Jim Trelease, states so simply, "if the child has never heard the word, the child will never say the word; and if you have neither heard it nor said it, it's pretty tough to read it and to write it."*
Can TV or videos provide the necessary words that babies need to hear? The answer is a definite no. Babies have to hear language that is personally directed at them, language that is conversational and interactive. Listening comprehension predicts reading comprehension. Comprehension is the most important aspect of reading. Comprehension begins when babies first begin to understand the words they hear. At four months a baby recognizes his or her own name. The journey to reading begins at birth when parents speak their first adoring words to their baby.*Read-aloud Rhymes for the Very Young, selected by Jack Prelutsky, illustrated by Marc Brown, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986), Introduction by Jim Trelease.
| 1. | Promote Listening Skills |
| 2. | Increase the Number of Vocabulary Words Babies Hear |
| 3. | Develop Attention Span and Memory |
| 4. | Help Babies Learn Uncommon words |
| 5. | Help Babies Learn to Understand the Meanings of Words |
| 6. | Help Babies Learn Concepts about Print |
| 7. | Help Babies learn to Get Information from Illustrations |
| 8. | Promote Bonding and Calmness for Both Baby and Parent |
| 9. | Stimulate the Imagination and All the Senses |
| 10. | Instill the Love of Books and Learning |
| 1. | Newborns Need a Quiet Reading Environment |
| 2. | Newborns Are Comforted by the Sound of Your Voice |
| 3. | Hold and Cuddle Your Baby When You Read |
| 4. | When Choosing a Book, Allow Your Baby to Be Your Guide |
| 5. | Start Reading at Any Page |
| 6. | You don't Have to Read All of the Words in the Book |
| 7. | Repeated Readings are Good for Baby's Language Development |
| 8. | Use "parentese" When Reading and Talking to Your Baby |
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