Favorite Books for Young Readers

Importance of Reading to Young Children

Reading to children helps build their vocabulary, helps them learn early literacy skills (like print concepts, letters and their sounds, etc.), and build a love for reading. Not only does reading improve your child’s academic skills, research shows that reading also strengthens children’s social and emotional development. According to this research, reading to young children is linked to decreased levels of aggression, hyperactivity, and attention problems (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2017). Aside from all the wonderful things reading to your child helps teach them, it is also a great way to spend quality time together (Van Amburg, 2021)!

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Playing with Books!

Children’s books can be used at any stage of development to facilitate improvements in both expressive and receptive language skills. Today, we will be focusing on building preverbal skills and eventually eliciting first words by playing with books. Before children begin to use words, they use gestures to communicate. They then begin to pair these gestures with vocalizations to obtain desired items or actions, and eventually use animal noises, exclamatory phrases, and sound effects in play.

Books are filled with a variety of age-appropriate pictures that are easy to pair with gestures and sounds. Pick one or two pictures per page so that your child can start to do them spontaneously. If they are not copying your gestures right away, do not be afraid to take their hand and help them “beep beep” on the truck or “tickle tickle” a baby’s feet.

Below, I have attached a table with examples of common pictures found in children’s books and what I might do when I see them.

Once your child builds their imitation of gestures and sounds, they might begin to fill in routine phrases, which come up often in repetitive books. As your child becomes familiar with the book, you can pause and have them fill in a word. For example, in Brown Bear Brown Bear, each page ends with, “What do you see?” You can set the child up to fill in that phrase by saying, “what do you…” and looking at your child in anticipation.

Have fun!!

Ana Thrall, MS, CCC-SLP

Speech-Language Pathologist

Using Books to Encourage Language

By Meryl Schnapp, MA, CCC-SLP

Reading to children from a young age has been found to foster cognitive and language development (Rodriguez et. al., 2009). Early exposure to books also helps to promote later literacy (Dickenson, 2012) in children. Incorporating reading into your child’s regular routine can help him/her learn to sit and attend to a book.

How do you choose books for your child?

Very young children often have limited attention spans and will not sit and attend to long stories. Choosing books with colorful pictures and a limited number of words per page can allow for meaningful interactions with your child. For children under 24-months look for sturdy board books that allow even the youngest children to handle pages with minimal damage.

100wordsbook

Early word books, such as First 100 Words by Roger Priddy or First Words by DK Publishing, allow for the introduction of early vocabulary by providing children with pictures that are colorful and realistic. Try pointing to the pictures in the book and naming them with your child.

brownbear

Books with repetitive text are great for toddlers. Some favorites include: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Eric Carle and Bill Martin, Jr. and It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles Green Shaw, and Goodnight Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann.

As your child gets to know the story, try pausing and allowing your child to fill in familiar words.

dear zoo

Lift the flap books often keep children engaged by allowing them to interact with the book. Some favorites include: Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell, Where is Baby’s Belly Button? by Karen Katz, and any of the Fisher-Price Little People books.

time to get dressed

Books can be a great way to introduce new skills such as getting dressed or potty training. Time to Get Dressed! by Elivia Savadier is a must-have for daily routine.

Choose some books that are relevant to your child’s interests. There are many engaging books about animals, trucks, food, etc. Look for books featuring favorite your children’s favorite characters such as Elmo and Dora the Explorer.

Enjoy your time reading together with your child!

References

Dickenson, D.K., Griffith, J.A., Golinkoff, R.M., Hirsh-Pasek, K. “How Reading Books Fosters Language Development around the World.” Child Development Research,Vol. 2012, 2012.

Rodriguez, E.T., Tamis-LeMonda, C.S., Spellmann, M.E., et. Al., “The Formative role of home literacy experiences across the first three years of life in children from low-income families,” Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, Vol. 30, no.6 pp. 677-694, 2009.