Read To Your Toddler!
Toddlers love activity and the chance to practice their growing language skills. You can use these traits to advance your toddler's pre-reading skills. Involve toddlers in the reading experience by asking them questions and having them expand on the stories you read to them. Toddlers who talk about the illustrations, characters, setting, actions and other aspects of books step up the development of their reading skills.
Tips for reading with your toddler:
- Allow your toddler to help choose books to read. This one or that one? When you go to the library, you choose some and allow your toddler to choose too! Busy toddlers might not sit for the whole book — and that’s OK!
- Use books as a conversation starter with your toddler! Ask them questions, like, “What do you think this book is about?” “What will happen next?” “Why did this character do that?”
- Model turn-taking in conversations. Try and go back-and-forth two or three times, so your child knows how to listen to when another person is talking, and to recognize when they can start speaking. Non-fiction books are GREAT for conversation starters, and for rich vocabulary too!
- Ask your child to retell the story to you, especially if there is a favorite story they like. It’s important to understand stories and enjoy them, but being able to tell a story to another person is a great skill, and can help your child become a better communicator!
- Toddlers LOVE repetition and often have favorite books they want again and again. If there is a phrase in a story that gets repeated, encourage them to say it with you each time! You can also think of new ways to say it each time. Make a dance or finger motion each time something is repeated.
