Reading is a wonderful way to spend time with your children. Reading is part of providing a stimulating environment in which your children can learn and grow. Reading to them provides a foundation for language development, literacy, and possibly a lifelong love of books. Who doesn't want all that for their kids?
While any kind of reading is better than not reading at all, some methods are better than others. (Yes, there's more to it than the words on the page.) If you're interested in a parent's experience and advice on this topic, some of my personal favorite kids' books, and some milk and cookies* please follow me below the fold.
*Readers must provide their own milk and cookies.
My oldest child is five years old and will begin kindergarten in August, so my experience and knowledge in this area will generally cover the age group from infancy to pre-school.
Like I said before, not all reading is created equal. First I'd like to talk about what I believe is the most important part of reading to your child, and that is reading interactively with your child.
Interactive reading goes beyond reading to your children. It's reading with them. The distinction is important because it engages them in the process and aids their linguistic development and understanding of the subject matter.
Reading interactively to very young children can consist of simply pointing at the pictures and talking briefly about them before moving on. This can be as simple as a short question and answer session between yourself and your child about whatever is going on in every page or two. For younger readers it may be a simple identification question: "What's that in the little girl's hand? It's a kite. She's flying a kite." or "Where is the moon? Can you point to the moon?" For children who are a little older, you may be able to ask questions about the story: "Was it a good idea for Olivia to paint on the wall in her house? What do you think will happen next?"
The next thing I'd like to talk about is reading with emotion. Reading with emotion means being excited during exciting parts of the story, laughing during funny parts of the story, being worried during worrisome parts of the story, etc. You can read with inflection and incorporate emotion into your interaction. You can ask questions with excitement, mirth, or worry in your voice. Don't be afraid to use different voices for different characters.
Reading with emotion is probably less important in terms of linguistic development than interactive reading, but it can add to your enjoyment of the reading experience and will certainly add to your child's. You can also use facial expressions and hand gestures to add emotion to what you read. Adding to your child's enjoyment of their reading experience can lead to their increased appreciation for reading. After all, we want them to look forward to story time and what better way than to play up the tone by adding emotive inflection to our reading?
Now that we've addressed ways to enhance the quality of your child's reading experience, I would like to pivot a little and address quantity.
Most suggestions that I've ever heard or read from professionals in the field of childhood development fall in the 15 to 20 minute per day range. That is a minimum value and I've never heard of anyone suggesting a maximum, so you should read to your child for AT LEAST 15 to 20 minutes per day, every day.
Since you'll be spending so much time reading to your child, it's essential that you have good books to read. Even if your children's book library is a big one, it is inevitable that you will be reading the same books over and over again, so I would finally like to talk about choosing good children's books.
There are picture books, which usually have an illustration or photograph with a short caption, and there are story books. Both are necessary and the picture books are extremely helpful in developing basic vocabulary in very young children. There's a lot more variety in story books, so that's what I'll focus on in my recommendations.
The books we gravitate to the most in my family are the ones that satisfy these criteria:
- The story is enjoyable to the child
- The story is enjoyable to the parent
- The illustrations and story create good opportunities for interaction
Different books satisfy these criteria to different degrees and in different ways. I think that it's very important not to forget about #2- The story is enjoyable to the parent. It's easy to put your kids first, but remember that you'll be reading these books over and over again. If you don't enjoy them yourself, you probably won't be as emotive or interactive with your child as you would be otherwise and their story time won't be as fulfilling an experience as it could be.
These are some books that I've chosen as my favorites:
(This is the fun part!)
I'll begin with the basics. Good Dog, Carl is a book with few words and the story is told by the pictures. This is an excellent starting point because the wordless format almost forces interaction. You will tell the story by interpreting, hopefully with your child, the illustrations and you won't tell it exactly the same way every time.
One caveat that I should mention about Good Dog, Carl is something that never occurred to me until I read a few negative critiques of this book. It tells the story of a mother who leaves her baby in the care of a dog while she goes out and while she's away, hijinks ensue. It includes the baby crawling into and falling down the laundry chute and swimming in the fish tank. I feel that these fantastical situations are perfect for both interactive and emotive reading but a few parents have found these situations at least a little disturbing.
Another basic reading favorite is Dr. Seuss's Hop On Pop. I could make a list like this consisting entirely of Dr. Seuss books, but I've only chosen one. Hop On Pop is not by any measure my personal favorite Dr. Seuss, but it is the most basic and scores high in creating opportunities for interaction. Very young children and those just learning to read will both benefit from the structure and design of Hop On Pop.
Goodnight Moon is a timeless classic that also scores high because of its opportunities for interaction. Goodnight Moon's early pages can be a sort of picture hunt as you identify the items in the room, then in the later pages, you say goodnight to some of those items and see them in isolation.
I had originally chosen But Not The Hippopotamus as the signature Sandra Boynton book for this diary. When I asked NMMom her opinion, though, she said that I should include Moo, Baa, La La La instead. Her choice makes more sense because, while it scores a little lower on the "enjoyable for parents" scale, it scores much higher on the interaction scale for the simple reason that you get to make a lot of animal noises. I should say that I've yet to find a Boynton book that I don't like.
We only recently added Olivia to our home library and after a few readings, it's become one of my newest favorites. Olivia does quite a variety of things, including getting a sunburn at the beach and getting a time out for trying to recreate a Jackson Pollack painting on a wall in her house.
Harold and the Purple Crayon is a wonderful story about a little boy who creates his own adventure by applying his purple crayon to the blank pages of the book. The moon that he draws on the first page follows him on an adventure that he creates by drawing his own surrounding. Harold's adventure includes walking through the woods, flying in a balloon, and finally finding his way to the comfort of his bed.
Every Shell Silverstein book is a gem. The Giving Tree is my absolute favorite. The story is about a tree who gives everything he possibly can to a boy as the boy grows older and his needs change. This is one that scores extremely high on the "parental enjoyment" scale. The parallel between the tree's sacrifices and the kinds of sacrifices a parent makes for his child consistently brings tears to my eyes as I read it.
The Napping House is one that scores strongly on all three of my measurements. It's a cute little story that builds upon itself as it describes each character climbing on top of the previous to fall asleep, and then in descending order waking up again. It's beautifully illustrated and provides great opportunities for emotive and interactive reading.
Like with so many other authors, I could create an entire list of Jack Prelutsky rhymes. I chose The Dragons Are Singing Tonight specifically because of the opportunities for vocabulary building. I love to read this to my 5 year old and ask him about some of the words and what he thinks the poems mean. A few of the words that may be new to your little one include: cacophonous, obeisance, disconsolate, derision, and disparage.
Finally, Know It Alls Treasury of Animals and Nature is probably the one book we've gotten the most mileage out of in the NMDad house. Several species of animals including dinosaurs, insects, horses, and cats are detailed in the pages of this treasury. It's likely to be more appropriate for your older toddlers and pre-schoolers, though infants would probably enjoy the pictures. I've never tried to read the whole thing in one sitting, but my 2 year old, who is a tremendous animal lover, will sit through three or four chapters at a time.
Of course, there are many, many other wonderful children's books out there. Nursery Rhyme treasuries are a staple in many homes with young children. Touch and Feel books and lift the flap books are great because they offer the additional stimulation of texture and physical manipulation.
So now I'd like to yield the floor and ask you for your reading tips and maybe some of your memories.
What books do you like to read to your kids?
What books do you remember from your childhood?
What books do you think parents and caregivers ought to avoid?
