When Little Miss J is older, I will teach her to read – JD, 4
I think reading is important. I think it has a part to play waaaaaay before notions of letter recognition and preschool literacy come into view. What do you think?
From birth, both our children had soft picture books that we’d look at together, and from about four months old, we started having reading time, pointing at the words as we read.
JD’s an early reader and I’m torn when it comes to the whole nature/nurture debate, but I do know both kids were able to enjoy reading from very small, so why not? And why save books only for bedtime – why not enjoy them all day long?
This week we received three Little Learners books from Parragon Publishing, each offering different experiences for children aged 0-2 years:
- I Can Share has pull out flaps and looks at the simple things children learn to do, such as say hello and goodbye
- Night Night shows some of the common items associated with the bedtime routine, with each one clearly labelled
- Touch and Feel Animals features a range of farm yard critters, with textured surfaces, such as a wooly sheep’s coat or smooth duck’s beak
Little Miss J (6.5 months) seems to love them. They’re all printed on thick card so there’s no danger of paper cuts and she seems delighted that she’s allowed to grab and play with them at an age where most things are constantly being moved out reach.
She truly engages with them – she looks at the pictures, she touches the pages, she watches my finger trace the words. It’s a lovely experience.
No, I don’t think she’ll be reading on her own next week, but she’s forming an early love and appreciation for books and the written word. How great is that?
Disclosure: we were sent the three Little Learners books free of charge for review. No payment was received. All reviews are 100% honest.
Thanks for reading. Please comment, share or subscribe to have future posts delivered to your inbox.
Definitely never too young – we read Hairy Maclairy and Julia Donaldson from almost as soon as my daughter was born and she just loved the rhythm and rhyme of the words – some of her first words were “Monkey and Me” from Emily Gravett’s great book.
Would love for you to link it up at my new Empty Your Archive link party which is a chance to dust off great posts from your archive – there is a focus this week on reading – would really love to see you there, Alice @ Mums Make Lists x
Absolutely! No such thing as too young. We’ve been reading books to our little man since he could hold his head up to look at them with us. When he was a baby, I was a big fan of the black and white books, and now that he’s a toddler, it’s story books all the way. We always have three stories at bedtime, but we keep a selection of his books in the sitting room bookcase too, and those are taken out at random times during the day.
I love books, always have, and always will. Luckily my husband loves reading too (although his tastes are a little more fact than fiction) but this has meant we have already started a little collection of books for our little girl who isnt even born yet.
We are adament that we will be reading to her as often as possible and I cant wait to teach her to read, as my mum did for me at a very early age.
YES! No such thing as too young – listening to the sounds of words, responding to pictures, going into the magical world of stories…
and really agree about books all day long – so much fresher to concentrate in the morning, too!
I think the reason GG is such a reader is that the only thing that ever stopped her screaming at me all day long as a baby and toddler was reading to her. So that’s what we did, all day long, every day. The Bug, conversely, was happy to occupy himself and so hasn’t been read to as much. I feel bad about that., He is progressing fine, and enjoys being read to, but the passion isn’t there in him. So yes, I think it makes a big difference if you gain an early experience of books.
I think it is so important for children to learn to read and I for one, cannot wait to start reading proper bedtime stories with my daughter- I have such wonderful memories of sitting in bed with my Mum and Dad and reading stories- The Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton was my favourite. We read her a bedtime story each night and have done since she was two months old! x
Great post :) Both my children were (or are!) early talkers and I partly wonder if it’s because we’ve read to them as part of their bedtime routine from day one. We often have the nature/nurture discussion too. M is a total bookworm and learns all the words to her stories off by heart! I was thinking about doing a similar post as I recently read that 3 in 10 children don’t own a single book!
that quote from your little boy is soo cute! I totally agree – you can never start reading to your kids too early. Reading to even very young babies brings all sort of benefits and it’s a great habit to get into.