Your baby changes and grows so much in this first year. Track your baby’s development month by month, encourage your baby’s learning with our suggested activities . Find practical information on health and safety. We can help you with tips on crying, sleeping or even what to look for when choosing a baby sitter. Have questions about basic care? We have the answers !
Why read to your baby
A child can learn and benefit greatly from being read to right from the day they are born.
Big ones, little ones, soft ones, plastic ones and musical ones.
Children's books come in all sorts of fascinating shapes and sizes.
Grab a book and snuggle up on the sofa with your child and share the
joy of story telling with them. The benefits of reading out loud to
your baby or young child are simply endless!
So go and grab some books from your local book shop, or get into the habit of taking your baby to the library. This can go a long way to helping your child become a proficient and confident reader later on in life.
Benefits of reading to your baby:
- It encourages your baby to make connections between the "heard" word and the meaning "behind" the word.
- Reading gives a positive foundation to pre-reading skills that aids the process of becoming independent readers in the future.
- One of the most important skills a parent can pass on is how to communicate: how to speak, listen, and to read. By reading aloud to your children, you are teaching them all of these skills.
- Reading to babies also expands their vocabulary, improves memory, and allows them to practice listening skills.
- Try making books from cardboard and pasting pictures from magazines (especially faces) - babies love these.
- Baby books should be sturdy and uncluttered with lots of bright primary colors. Babies also like books with photos of real people - particularly of other babies.
- As your baby grows and becomes more mobile, incorporate movement and actions that go along with the books. For example, when reading "Humpty Dumpty" pretend to fall with your little one at the right time. They will soon come to anticipate this movement and be really excited about it. It's remarkable how quickly they learn these little routines and grow to love them.
- Toddlers rapidly develop a group of favorite books and will want you to read them again and again. This can be a little boring for you, but it's important to your toddler because they find great delight in repetition. It encourages them to learn the meaning of words, which is vital for language development.
- As your child becomes older, he will want books that actually tell a story and have an ending that makes sense to him. Books help to develop the preschooler's attention span. They contribute to children forming a rich vocabulary and verbal skills.
- Books also help to develop thinking and the imagination.
- They also contribute to the development of basic reading concepts such as following the words from the left to right side of a page. Place books within easy reach of your child, so they can enjoy looking at them on their own.
So go and grab some books from your local book shop, or get into the habit of taking your baby to the library. This can go a long way to helping your child become a proficient and confident reader later on in life.
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