Tips and resources to support children birth to age five
Helping Toddlers “Read”
Two-year-old Arianna can “read” her favorite Scooby-Do book. She sits down and recites the first three or four pages – that’s as far as she’s memorized the text – then hands it to me to read the rest. She believes that she’s reading and she “reads” with feeling, even inserting little asides (like “uh-oh” after a scary plot twist). This is great fun and really cute to watch. But it’s far more important than that.Look at what this toddler has achieved:
- How to hold a book and turn the pages at appropriate times, one at a time;
- An understanding of how stories work, including how they sound when someone reads them;
- Knowledge of words she might not hear in everyday conversation; and
- A positive attitude toward reading, including the idea that reading is something she is capable of.
Arianna’s mom and dad
- Read to her frequently, several books at a time, several times a day;
- Read “with feeling” and they comment on the story as it goes along;
- Make sure that Arianna’s favorite books are available for her to look at on her own.
That’s it. That’s all. Nothing magical. Nothing unusual. Nothing you can’t do yourself.If you don’t read to your child frequently already, start doing that. Your local public library has books you and your child will love and every thrift shop and discount store has low-cost books for kids. It doesn’t matter if the books are award-winners. Any book – even a Scooby-Do book – is fine.
Enjoy books with your child and make it fun to listen to you read. Comment on the action and the pictures.
Don’t worry about pages being torn or books becoming bent. If your child is going to learn to love reading and carry books around, he has to have access to them. Don’t worry if, at the beginning, your child doesn’t want to hear a story all the way through. Just look at the pictures together and enjoy the experience.
But to become readers, children must be read to. So read to your child.
And soon, just like Arianna, your child will be reading to you.
You can view all of my past posts, slide shows and parenting resources by visiting http://www.earlylearningcommunity.org/page/tips-from-dr-patricia-nan
Comment
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Comment by Tiffany Hupp on October 12, 2010 at 3:26pm -
My baby will be a year old this Friday and we read together very often. I wish I could say every night, but I'll admit we skip a few nights now and then. I started reading with my baby when he was a couple of months old, much to my husband's amusement. He thought the whole thing was silly, but I did it anyway, believing in the importance of it. As a teacher though, I sometimes have children in my classroom that I know are not being read to. We tell the children everyday after they are finished eating to "Go read a book" until the whole class is finished. We actually had one little boy just stare at us like he didn't know what a book was. We sat him on the floor and handed him a book. Again, he just looked at us without a clue. We came to the startling realization that he had never been read to. He was three years old and had never even held a book. My own one year old knows how to flip the pages in a book and here is a three year old without that simple knowledge. He has since taken a liking to books and we are sure to encourage our families to go to the library and we share our excitement for and commitment to reading at every opportunity.
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