Reading

 Cloth books are great for this age.

We read a lot around here. Everyone knows you should read to your children, but we take it to an extreme. I decided to add it up one day this week and the kids were listening to us read books for a total of 3 hours and they spent an hour looking at books by themselves. Of course this was spread out during the day, but that's pretty typical for us. If given the choice of books or toys my kids choose books most of the time.

Board books are also yummy.

We always have books out and available, usually in multiple rooms. Even if everything else gets put away, the books are always out. We have a lot of board books, enough to rotate so they aren't all out and we can have "new" books every month. Our bookshelf shows the covers of books, rather than the spines which makes books a larger focus and more attractive to everyone.

Our bookshelf (bolted to the wall)

We have a variety of types of books. When I taught we were required (by accreditation) to have books from each of the following categories: fiction, non-fiction, rhyming, concept (shape, color), multi-cultural (gender, age, ethnicity, and ability), story, themed (whatever we were teaching), books with photographs, and alphabet books (for over the age of 2). We constantly have all of these represented at home as well. Old habits die hard.

This book has photographs and concepts (big and little).

While most of the time we simply read the books, at least once a day we discuss them more in depth. We will talk about the illustrator or photographer that made the pictures. We will mention the author is the one who wrote the book. We also point out the cover, spine, words, and pictures. They listen and while they don't completely understand yet, they are learning new vocabulary.

Fighting over a book

We talk about the pictures and point out small details that aren't important for the story, but are interesting. Our kids started to sort books early. If you read Fuzzy Bunny you also had to read Pat the Bunny and if you read How to Build a Snowman you also had to read Shimmery Glimmery Snow. A month later they started showing some symbolic recognition. They would bring the bunny puppet to read a bunny book and a toy airplane to read a book about airplanes. Even before they could verbalize what they were learning, we could see it through their actions.

"Reading" Fuzzy Bunny

They know when to turn pages when we are reading. They have memorized the text and will tell us when we miss a word. When "reading" on their own they will turn the book so that it is right side up. We can say, "Go find Silly Sally" and they walk past 10 other books to find the right one. There are many times I'm tired of reading these books. One of the benefits to having them all memorized is I get to watch my kids' faces as I read to them. That makes it all worth while.

Fighting over a book again. This happens a lot.

What's your favorite part of reading to your kids?

I love watching them learn.