Reading with your child is one of the best ways to prepare them for the future. Reading together helps to build strong language and literacy skills that will help them at school and beyond. In fact, research has shown that children’s literacy skills impact their education, employment, income and well being.
Reading with your child is a great way to teach them about the world. It is also a wonderful opportunity to spend time together. Reading with your child helps develop their:
- reading and writing development
- vocabulary
- cognitive development
- imagination
- attention and concentration.
The best and easiest place to start is to make books part of your everyday routine. For example, you could read books at bath time, before bed, on the bus or while waiting for appointments. Try sharing at least one book every day – start your own family ‘book club’!
Here are some tips for getting your child hooked on books early:
- Find somewhere comfortable to read together such as a chair, lounge or beanbag;
- Keep books in a place that your child can see and reach them;
- Reduce distractions. Turn off the TV or radio and find a quite space so your child can hear your voice;
- Get face to face to help your child see and hear you better;
- Let your child help choose the book and turn the pages;
- Use fun noises and sounds like animal noises or silly voices;
- Change the tone of your voice as you read to make it interesting;
- Talk about what your child thinks the story will be about or what will happen next;
- Help your child make up their own stories;
- Act out books or scenes from books and do craft activities related to books.
Remember, there’s no ‘right’ way to read a book
Be guided by your child and keep it fun and interesting.
- You don’t have to start at the beginning
- You can skip pages
- You don’t have to finish the book
- You can just talk about the pictures
- You don’t have to read the words on the page
- You can change the words
- You can read the same book over and over again
When should we start reading together?
It’s never too early to start. Your baby or toddler won’t read with you the same way an older child would. They might ‘eat’ the book or bang it on the floor. That’s OK. Just focus on having fun and sharing the experience together.
What if my child doesn’t seem to have any interest in reading?
It can take time to build your child’s interest in reading. They might not sit down and read a book with you to start with. Instead, build book reading into part of your every day routine and gradually increase the amount of time you and your child spend reading together. The more you and your child read, the more interested they will be.
Try to find books about topics that interest your child (such as dinosaurs, sport or TV characters) to make them more involved in story time. Even better, let them pick the book and turn the pages!
What about E-Books?
- Continue to read with your child. Children learn the most when they read with an adult and talk about the story and characters.
- Enjoy the book in ‘read only’ mode first as this will help build your child’s understanding of the book.
- Try to minimise or turn off unnecessary features
- Keep games or interactive features as a ‘bonus’, not the focus of the activity.
For more information and ideas about book reading:
- Join your local library. It’s free to join and libraries often hold Nursery Rhyme Times or school holiday activities;
- The First 5 Forever Program provides parents with resources through public libraries and the First 5 Forever website. It aims to improve the outcomes of children aged 0-5 years by supporting confidence around communication and learning through everyday experiences.
- The Summer Reading Club is a free, interactive holiday program produced by State Library of Queensland and run online and with public libraries. It encourages children and young people to discover great authors and engage in literary activities during the summer holidays.
- The Hanen Centre Book Nook takes children’s books and provides parents with simple ways to use them with young children to build their language and literacy skills.
- Let’s Read is a national, evidence-based early literacy initiative that promotes reading with children from birth to five years.
Information sourced from The Hanen Centre (2016), Raising Children Network (2016), First 5 Forever (2016) and Let’s Read (2016).