Reading with Infants

As a kindergarten teacher, it is no surprise that our house is home to 100's of books.  Board books, chapter books, textbooks, wordless books, fiction, non-fiction.  You get the point.

It also comes as no surprise that reading is important to us.  My husband and I have been reading with Baby J since his first week home.  

At first, reading "with" looked more like reading "to."  Baby J cuddled with us on the couch for no more than five minutes at a time, listening to the sound of our voices as we read stories to him.  (After five minutes, there was often a screaming match.)  Many times he looked at the pictures, and sometimes he even drifted off to sleep.

Now, we still read with him everyday.  These days J does much more than simply look at the pictures.  He squeals with delight when we choose a story he enjoys, he holds a book on his own while we change his diaper (he 'reads' the pictures, while we recite the story from memory), and he turns the pages for us while we sit together and read.  Oftentimes during play, he will pull down a book from our homemade coffee table and look through the pages on his own.  It is quite fascinating to watch!

My own experience with young children has led me to understand that there are many benefits to reading with infants.


These Benefits include, but are not limited to:
- spending quality time with your infant in a quiet setting
- exposing your infant to the intonation of speaking and conversation
- teaching your infant to hold his or her attention to an activity for a certain period of time
- pointing out various objects in the stories; i.e. animals, and the sounds they produce - over time, babies and young children will  recognize these objects on their own
- introducing your infant to a broader range of vocabulary that we may not normally use in our every-day interactions with them


Some Tips that I have discovered with Baby J:
- board books are best; babies love to chew on them as much, if not more, than they like to read them
- select books that have bright, big pictures
- take cues from your baby - if they appear calm and interested, keep reading!  (extra cuddle time is always great!)
- fewer words on each page allow you to turn pages more often, and will better keep your infant's attention

Here J is pulling books off of our coffee table 'book carousel'.  He was very excited to discover he could do this on his own!

A "beautiful oops" becomes a "beautiful mess."  :)

Happy Reading!