Reading to Your Toddler
One of the best things you can do to support your child’s language development is to read books with them. And reading can be so much more than ‘just’ reading. Books expose children to letters, new vocabulary, grammar, and a wide range of language concepts (size, color, quantity, etc). Reading helps children understand and respond to ‘wh’ questions. And how you ‘read’ with your child can significantly impact their language development.
Books engage young children with the use of bright colorful pictures, flip tabs revealing hidden pictures, and topics of interest. Authors help children learn the meaning of new words by providing illustrations, by using words multiple times throughout a book, and using words in a variety of contexts.
Being an active reader is an important part of reading to your child. There are many things you can do to help promote language during reading. For example:
When naming an object, point to the corresponding picture (“Cow. Here’s the cow”)
Compare a pictured object with a real world object (e.g. a picture of a ball in the book and one of your child’s toys)
Model actions contained in the book (think jumping, eating, sleeping, throwing etc)
Use your voice to help convey the meaning of words. Don’t just say the word ‘whisper’, do it in a whispering voice
Ask questions about the book (What do you think is under the flap? What do you think is going to happen, What sound does the firetruck/bubble/dinosaur make?). For younger children, you will answer those questions for them. For older children, help them answer the questions
Relate topics from the book to your child’s world. “Llama Llama sleeps with his bunny. What do you sleep with?”
When you start reading with a young child, you will likely find that they aren’t yet ready to attend to the full reading of a book. That’s OK. Meet them where they’re at, and build their tolerance for reading time. You can start with showing them how to hold a book appropriately (right side up, front cover facing them). Flip through the book, page by page, and point to pictures of interest and label objects. As you ‘re-read’ the book (kids LOVE to read the same books over and over!), have your child point to the pictures you name (“Show me the tree”). As your child matures, and their tolerance for reading time increases, you can begin ‘reading’ the story. Eventually, they’ll want to read the book to you!
Read with your child often. Evidence shows that children require multiple exposures to new words before they incorporate them into their vocabulary. And, by the time a child is 5 years of age and ready to enter Kindergarten, they typically have a vocabulary of up to 2,200 words! So when your child wants to read that favorite book for the 100th time, cuddle up in a comfy chair and know that you are supporting their language development.