Storytime ♥ Reading To Babies

Here's another fantastic guest post from Heidi Rosenberg about

Reading To Babies

I started reading to my eldest child the day I brought her home from the hospital. There was nothing I enjoyed more than sitting down holding my new baby and reading to her, it’s a great way to bond with your child, and your child will get your full attention which of course they will love and in turn will develop a love of reading.

Reading to babies is a fantastic way to immerse them in the sounds of rhythm and speech, which is crucial for their language development.

For infants under 6 months old, reading is more about the tone of your voice and the cuddling into you for the bonding experience. It is not very important what you read, you could even read adult material at this age.

If you pick a children's book it would be best to pick a book with highly contrasting big pictures, because the child's vision is still developing at this stage. The text could have few words or even no words at all, you could even make up the words to the pictures, to develop a story just for the two of you. For this age group a board book, would be best as they tend to pull at the pages and could ruin them.

The Cleo the Cat series of Books, written by Stella Blackstone make a great introduction book and can be used throughout the first few years. They have simple rhymes and bright bold illustrations.

Babies aged 7 months to 1 year are beginning to understand the meaning of words, so reading reinforces what they have already learned. It is still best to keep to simple books with not too many different images or text on a page. Word books are great, while reading point to the picture, say what it is, act out what you read with your hands, face and voice, this will teach them the basics of language and how words are used to emphasize. Let the baby hold the book, turn the pages when he wants to and babble back. They will feel important and proud to be “reading” to you! Still keep to board books at this age, your baby is probably destructive, board books can even take limited amounts of chewing! Keep to simple words, animals, colors. Alphabet and number books are always good as they tend to be simple and truly are a great starting point.

What a great post Heidi! I have treasured the sweet moments of cuddling with my little ones while reading to them. Heidi has offered a 10% off coupon to use to purchase any Barefoot Books. Visit Heidi HERE or email her at HEIDIRosenberg@mybarefootbooks.com