Sharing a book with your child
10 Tips to make it fun and to start the path to reading
1. Look at the cover of the book, talk about the pictures, ask questions like; who is that? What can you see? Does that look fun? Check the back of the book too, what does it show? Are there pictures the same as on the front cover? Make sure that your child gets to hold the book and feel it, to turn it over and look inside.
2. Let you or your child look at whatever page comes to you first. It may be that you hold the book and pages open out from the middle, take a look and see if the child can find a picture or say something about the page.
3. When you have both had chance to explore the book, say that you are both going to find out what’s going on in the book, you’re going to read it together or look at the pictures and make up the story. You are going on a book adventure!
4. Get comfortable, find a nice place to sit or lay on your tummies. Make sure that you and your child can both see the pages easily.
5. Set the book so that you open the book and turn the pages from right to left.
6. Explore the pages together, what are the pictures showing, what do you think is happening, and what do you think could happen on the next page? Read some of the words and in time point to the words as you are reading them.
7. Use some expression in your voice to go with the story, children love to feel the emotions in stories. They learn a lot by the expression in your voice.
8. Go through the pages and talk about the story as it develops and what might happen. It may be that your child wants to go faster and that’s ok to do that. You can always go over the book again another time.
9. When you get to the end, it may be that your child wants to move on to something else, that’s fine, or they may want to choose their own book for another story.
10. Leave the books in the room if you can so that your child can look at them again in their own time. Talk about looking after them to keep the stories safe.
Reading Ideas Resource from Books Go Walkabout, Cambridge UK
Sue Martin www.booksgowalkabout.com