How To Read Aloud to Your Child from Young

When you read aloud to your child, is it a rewarding experience or an exercise in frustration? Here are some ways to help ensure an enjoyable experience for both of you when you read aloud, with children's books that make great read alouds and effective reading aloud techniques.

You don't have to wait for your baby to get to a certain age to begin reading children's books to him. Start now!

Continue reading aloud to your child until he is at least 10 years old. Children continue to benefit from listening to others read long after they themselves have learned to read children's books.

For young children, children's books with rhyme, rhythm and repetition are excellent.

Be consistent about reading aloud to your child. Do it daily and, if possible, about the same time every day. Reading children's books right before bedtime often works well.

If you have several small children, you can read to them together. Picture books work well for this.

Don't be surprised if your children want to hear a favorite children's book again and again. That's fine. As they get to really know the story well, have them fill in words for you.

Try to choose children's books that are above your child's reading level but at the child's interest level.

Some children love reading about the same characters. If that's what your child likes, choose several short books in a series or a longer chapter book. Reading a chapter a night works well.

If your children are several years apart you will need to read to them individually as they get older to ensure that each children's book you choose is at the appropriate reading and interest level for each child.

As your child gets older and gains in reading ability, occasionally pick a book right at her reading level and take turns reading to one another.

Tips:
When reading a chapter of a children's book each night, always review what happened in the previous night's chapter before starting a new chapter.
When you begin reading aloud to a baby, you will only be able to keep your baby's attention for a few minutes. That's to be expected.
As children mature, so do their attention spans.

Importance of Reading to Baby!

Remember how you felt the first time your secret crush looked at you? That is nothing compared to your baby’s gaze at you. He looks at you in the eyes and you feel like you’re in heaven. You are then compelled to talk to him. It’s an automatic reaction. It is as if the baby is expecting you to interact with him. The truth is, your baby is really expecting something with that eye-contact!

In these moments, your “cootsie-coo” or the cute but utterly senseless “dah-dah-dah-dah,baby?” or “ ah- ba-ba-ba-ba...” babble, wouldn’t be enough. Of course, another way would be to make your baby giggle endlessly with your “peek-a-boo” However, you’re not waiting till your baby turns blue before you stop, are you?

The totally senseless sounds you make just to entertain your bundle of joy could only go on if you don’t mind being totally senseless for a longer period. Usually, it is you who gives up first. And the baby looks at you as if telling you not to stop. This is the time when you usually start talking to your baby with real words -- This is where the story-telling comes in handy.

.... and then you read to your baby.

If you have been talking to your baby while he was still inside his mother’s womb, unbeknown to you, something almost magical is unfolding with this first time face-to-face talking and reading to your baby.

He remembers your voice!

According to the latest scientific findings, a developing fetus can hiccup and actually reacts to loud noises as early as on its ninth week. Your baby dreams, can taste the food that the mother eats, and he actually starts hearing by the end of the second trimester. In fact, he can distinguish the voices of his Mom from another person.

Research shows that a fetus’ heart rate slows down when his mother is speaking – this means he is calmed by the mother’s voice. Furthermore, the fetus responds to a familiar story (a story that has been repeatedly read to him while he’s inside the womb) and he prefers to listen to it over a new story read to him after birth.

Although there are no scientific findings to show that the baby appreciates the story that you read, reading to your baby (especially if you start while he is still inside his mother’s womb) becomes his first social encounter with you – this is your first bonding. Your voice becomes one of the first stimuli that he can identify with and connect to you. It would then become very important for the Mom to read aloud to the baby while he is inside the womb. Well, you can just talk but it would appear crazy, right? Besides, if you just ramble on, you might forget yourself and you might end up talking about something that pisses you off.

Here are some simple tips for reading to your baby:

• Pick a book that will become your baby’s favourite. Don’t worry if you find your baby prefers one single book read to him over and over. Don’t insist on introducing new ones if it is not welcomed. Babies learn by repetition. They may not even understand anything about it – they just love to hear the sound of your voice, and the familiarity of the words read to him. Pick a book that has simple, repetitive words. It would be better if the words rhyme, so you can read it in a sing-song voice.

• Pick a book with simple and large pictures of familiar objects against solid backgrounds. It would also help if it is one of those board books that could survive the baby’s hands, spit, and bites. You would also want to make sure it is always clean as the baby would always want to put it in his mouth.

• When reading, you don’t need to always start from the first page. You can immediately go to the baby’s favourite page (it might be because of the picture, or it might be because it is the part where your reading becomes very expressive – read with exaggerated voice expression; use different voices for different story characters; make animal sounds, or say “chug-chug-chug...tooot! toot!” when you’re reading about a train. You don’t have to finish the book in every sitting, too. Remember, the baby still does not understand the story.


• When reading, you don’t have to totally leave everything to what the author has written. You may interrupt the story every now and then to interact with the baby (this is specially so if the baby can already respond or point), e.g., “See? There’s goes the baby duck...Where’s the baby duck? Yes...that’s the baby duck. It goes, ‘quack! Quack’. What’s the sound of the duck?” Or point at the drawings or pictures and say, “This is the house. It is a red house...” etc.

The first five years of a human being’s life are a time of incredible growth and learning. Reading to your child gives him his first encounter with words, colors, numbers, letters and shapes. Constantly reading to your baby imprints these concepts in their minds. Reading becomes a part of your baby’s life. As months pass, notice how your baby behaves when he sees you holding his favourite book. He may even try to grab it from you, may help you flip the pages, point at objects, or he may even surprise you with a “Quack! Quack!” when he sees the duck.

Are you the tyical asian parents?

Baby reading at 12mth old. So when can I start for my child?

It was a battle between nurture and nature. Does the brain develop according to a set of defined limits set by the genes or does intellectual stimulation affect the development and growth of the brain. The studies are still going on but since Beth Lucy Wellman’s* time in 1940’s, there have been more and more studies to support the theories that it is intellectual stimulation that ‘Turns on” the synapses in the brain. Once ‘on’, these pathways or synapses continue to work and get stronger throughout a lifetime. It is also assumed that these synapses if not ‘turned on’, are eliminated. Basically, the brain operates on a use it or lose it basis.
It is pretty complicated how it all works in the brains but to simplify it. The brain is made up of neurons, or brain cells, which connect to one another through synapses. when the brain is developing, the millions of neurons are ‘switched on’ by individual electrical currents. If two neurons are coupled, but they are not electrically active together, then those synapses are pruned or lost*. This is how experience literally wires the brain.

What does that mean for parents?

It means that the former years of life are very important for getting the brain set up for learning. Many experts believe that the most important years of a child’s development are those before school age. Fifty percent of the ability to learn is developed in the first four years of a child’s life and another thirty percent by the age of eight. There is a lot of emphasis placed on parents to talk and read to their children. Equally important is that the children are provided with different learning experiences each time. Information and the method of delivery should be tailored to the needs of the child with visual, verbal and written information available to be absorbed

Baby can Read?

Quiz: Are you teaching your child to love reading?

Children who enjoy books make better readers and better overall students. Take our quiz to learn whether you're doing all you can to raise a book lover.

1. How many books are in your child's room?
a. Less than the number of shoes in my closet.
b. None; books are shelved in the family library.
c. Approaching the number in our public library's children's section.


1. The best answer is c. Your should immerse your child in books and have a variety at hand for whenever he's in the mood to read. Keeping books in your child's room, along with toys and games, will reinforce reading as a fun activity. If you don't want to spend money on new books, shop at used-book stores or stock up weekly at the library.

2. What do you usually do when your child has free time?
a. Read together for a while, then have him read or flip through books alone.
b. Encourage him to go play alone so you can have some time to yourself.
c. Suggest that he watch a video.


2. The best answer is a. Encourage your child to read whenever he has some downtime or is bored. You may face some tough competition from the television set, but try at least to set aside some time every evening for books. Reading with your child is a great way to share a fun experience and to introduce your child to more challenging material. Try to spend part of the time reading to your child, and if he's able, also encourage him to read alone.

3. When do you read books?
a. After my child is asleep; it's the only quiet time I have all day.
b. I don't have time to read.
c. In front of my child, whenever I can.


3. The best answer is c. Your child wants to be just like you. If you read in front of him and keep novels and books around the house, your child will want to read too.

4. When was the last time you took your child to the library?
a. It's been so long I can't remember.
b. Last week.
c. Sometime during the last three months or so.


4. The best answer is b. Take regular trips to the library, as often as your child wants to (within reason, of course). It's a good way for him to try out new books and authors, and it's free! If you take regular trips, you can also check bulletin boards for upcoming library events such as story times and book clubs. Make your child feel like a regular, and get him a library card in his own name.

5. If your child only wanted to read or look at comic books, what would you do?
a. Say no and encourage a quality book instead.
b. Say, "Great!" and buy more of them.
c. Agree to a few comic books per week as long as my child reads other books, too.


5. The best answer is c. Your job is to make reading fun and to teach your child to love books. If comic books are doing the trick, by all means encourage them, but continue to offer more challenging reads, too. Eventually you'll hit on something that's as appealing to your child as the comics.

6. What do you do when your child picks out books that are too difficult?
a. Say that the book is too advanced and put it back on the shelf.
b. Read the book quickly to my child, skimming over hard words and advanced concepts, and then move on to easier books.
c. Read the book with my child, explaining the hard words and discussing the story as we go.


6. The best answer is c. Encourage your child to try any book that's interesting, even if it seems too difficult. You can always read these more difficult books to your child. Take the opportunity to introduce new words, and discuss the story as you go to make sure your child comprehends it.

7. If your child wants to hear the same story over and over again and you're losing your mind, what do you do?
a. Pretend to lose the book.
b. Read it as often as my child wants to hear it but suggest other books as well.
c. Tell my child I'll read the book only once a week.


7. The best answer is b. Children who are learning to read like repetition, rhymes, and word patterns, and they love to hear books repeatedly. Indulge them. This repetition helps your child memorize the story, which is an important part of learning to read. Encourage your child to finish some of the sentences in the book or to "read" entire passages from memory.

8. If your child doesn't feel like reading, what do you do?
a. Require at least 30 minutes of reading a night, no matter what.
b. Take my child to the library and bookstore to look for books that appeal to his interests.
c. Let it go and figure the problem will take care of itself.
d. I don't ever have this problem — my child loves to read.


8. The best answer is b. Your child may be avoiding books because he hasn't found any that engage him. Show him that reading can provide information about whatever he's interested in — dinosaurs, cars, fairy godmothers, movie stars, magic tricks — and he'll be turning pages in no time! A child who doesn't love books and reading may have problems in school down the road, so don't ignore his lack of interest. You should also consider having his eyesight checked. Vision problems can make reading frustrating.

9. Which of the following best describes your child's favorite book?
a. It's falling apart because we read it every night.
b. I don't know. My child does most of his reading at school, not at home.
c. It's at the library. I don't want my child to read the same book over and over at home.


9. The best answer is a. If you've been reading to your child since he was a baby, you should have a couple of books that are well worn by now (Eric Carle's Very Hungry Caterpillar, for example, is a favorite of 1-year-olds and kindergartners alike). Because memorization is an important part of learning to read, you should continue to read old favorites until your child says he's had enough.

10. How often do you read with your child?
a. Once a week or less.
b. Wherever and whenever he wants to.
c. One hour every night, whether he wants to or not.


10. The best answer is b. Reading should be part of everyday life, and you should try to make room for it in your child's daily routine with a book or two just before bedtime, say, or right after dinner. But don't force your child to read if he's not in the mood. Reading should be fun, not a chore or assignment.

The first post!

I'm starting this blog to log down all the experiences that I have accumulated over the past decade of my experience as a education consultant.



I am a father to a lively, inquisitive 2 year old toddler. As a parent myself, I want the best for my child and hopes to share my knowledge on how to create a conducive home learning environment that can bring out the best in your child. So lets' start this sharing journey.