Encouraging Your Child To Read Books
Research shows that children who have been read to from babyhood do better at school and learn to read more easily than their classmates who haven't had the same early experiences.
This means that choosing books for babies becomes very important. Look for simple pictures with bright colours and plain backgrounds and rhyming text or simple stories which are fun to read aloud.
How Will I Know What Kind Of Books My Child Will Like?
A visit to a good children’s bookshop will reveal a number of novelty items, all designed to build and maintain interest in the story and make reading and storytelling more interesting for children. These have varying degrees of success. Look for a simple story as no amount of novelty will be able to make a poor story into a good one. However, novelties and a strong story will produce a book that children will want to look at repeatedly.
- board books- resistant to tiny fingers and durable enough to be left with other toys for babies and toddlers to explore by themselves
- “ordinary books” – good for giving to babies at the grabbing stage so they have something else to hold.
- peep hole books are a popular format using holes in some right hand pages to give a tantalising glimpse of the next one and includes text to encourage children to guess what's coming. It works well with cleverly planned stories and is particularly useful in non-fiction books
- don’t be afraid to ask the bookshop for advice. They are usually well versed in the books in their shops and used to being asked for recommendations
- join your local library. Their service is free and loaning their books helps you to have a high turnover of new books at home
- talk to friends to see which books their children enjoyed
- choose a book that you will like reading aloud, after all you will be reading it repeatedly!
How Can I Help My Child To Learn To Read?
- point out all the words around you – include road signs, packet of food, sides of buses and so on
- use board books and bath books as toys
- get into the routine of reading a bedtime story
- buy little books to keep in your bag. A wait at the doctors or for a bus passes more quickly when you are able to read
- ask your child lots of questions about the pictures and the story in the books that you read together
- spot familiar words togther and look out for special letter - the initial of your childs name for example
- follow the story with you finger to allow your child to follow each word
- teach your child to hold books properly and turn the pages gently
- don’t be worried if your child has a tendency to read the same books over and over again. It’s better to read something than nothing
- don’t read for too long at once
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