Fun With Books

Your home should be a literacy rich environment where reading is appreciated and considered fun!  There are so many ways in which parents can instill a love for learning, reading and literature well before their child knows how to read. 

Library story times are a fantastic way to bring new songs and ideas home.  Read the same books that the librarian did throughout the following week and sing the same songs.  It’s a great resource!

Make real life connections to the books you read together.  If you are reading a book that counts cookies, bake cookies together and eat them while reading the book again.  Remember, toddlers learn by repeating things over and over!

Show him how to read books while reading together.  Although you obviously know how to hold a book, how to read left to right and how to turn the pages, this is entirely new to your little one, so exaggerate those movements while reading together.  When he is reading on his own, does he model that?  I remember when my daughter used to lick her finger before tuning the pages of her book…something I do when leafing through magazines!

Encourage quiet reading time daily in your home.  Since our children were two years old, we spend time, as a family, quietly reading every evening.  Each of us had our own reading material and we read, sitting on the floor together, or on the sofa.  At first, your 2-year old will only do this for a few minutes, which is fine.  Of course, he isn’t actually “reading” but be sure to encourage him to look through the pictures of some favorite books.  As he matures, however, and you start to make this a regular occurrence in your home, you will see him being able to sit still and “read” for a longer period. You are instilling in him a love for reading early on.  This quiet time also gave me a few minutes to catch up on some reading myself!