How to Read to your Toddler

Seriously? A whole post on how to read to your child?  Stay with me for a minute… there is more to reading to a toddler than you might think.  Considering Love Bug’s attention span can be about 15 seconds (including the time it takes her to pull herself up into my lap, because everything these days is “I DO!”) figuring out how to keep her interested long enough to make it through one book is actually much harder than it sounds.  Here are a few ideas:

The key is to involve them.  Find ways for them to interact with you and the book.

Focus on your child, not the words.  The day I gave up reading while reading was revolutionary.  There comes a time you might need to abandon the text for a while and play on your child’s attention and interest instead.  Reading should be fun.  Do what you need to do to make it fun for yourself, and it will most likely become more fun for your child.

Ask questions.  “Spot Goes to School” is a fun book with simple pictures and a simple story to analyze by asking a series of questions from page to page. 

Here is an example: 

What is spot doing here?  Painting, that’s right. 

Oh no! Did Spot make a mess? 

What colors does Spot have in his paint box?

Is spot using a paintbrush?

Oh, look, what are these animals doing?

You get the idea.  Expanding the story expands their attention, as well as their vocabulary and reasoning skills.

Let them lead.  If getting your child to sit still for reading is really a struggle, try allowing your child to choose the books, where to sit and when to turn the pages.  Ask open ended questions to help them engage with the images, characters and story.  

Wordless books can be great tools and help us move away from literal reading into analytical thinking.  Follow your child’s lead.  Ask them what they see, then build on their observations in much the same way as I described in the Spot book.

Example:

What is the bear doing in this picture? That’s right, feeding the birds. 

What is he feeding the birds? Yes, seeds.

What color is the bird?

Do you think the bird is hungry?

Make books come alive.  Another way to involve your child is with props.  Little figurines or puppets that match the characters in the book are great!  I brought a bag of little animals to the family where I nanny.  I let each child choose 3 animals, and then told them when they saw the animal in the book to shout it out the noise that animal says, show us the animal and put it into the bag.  This kept the attention of two toddlers and preschooler and even an infant for quite a while… and all the interaction with the animals revolved around the book, in this case, Eric Carle’s “The Very Busy Spider.”  

This is my Farm Animal Book Bin.  There are three books about farm animals and many farm animal figurines all together in one bin.  This bin is great for group story time and I also recently recorded all the books onto a playlist making it great Quiet Time activity.  

Felt boards can be great ways to make a book come alive.  Check out this post to see how I have incorporated our felt board into Love Bug’s learning. 

Make your child the star.  In these DIY storybooks your child is the main character and the story is a memory of something the child did in real life.This is such a fun way to document your own family outings.  Here is how I make them.

When your toddler looses interest in reading, don’t give up.  Show them that books are more than pictures and words on pages – they are a world to enter and be part of.