Baby Life Topic

Reading With Your Baby Work / Play / Leisure Suitable for stages: 0 - 3 Months, 3 - 6 Months

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Reading to your baby is one of the best, rewarding, enjoyable and easiest things you can do. The experience of reading together has numerous benefits for both your baby and yourself.

When you read aloud, you are using your vision, hearing, comprehension, voice, creativity and getting a cuddle with your baby at the same time. Your baby is relaxed in your arms where their minds and bodies can soak up the learning experience, interacting with you and the book in various ways. The experience is bonding whilst your baby develops their speech and language, attention, focus, knowledge of cause and effect, and learns about their world. Reading is a lifelong occupation, and the love of reading can be seeded from very early in life.

Mem Fox's book Reading Magic: Why Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives Forever is highly recommended for inspiring all parents to understand and participate in the 'magic' of reading aloud. Check out this short video to hear Mem Fox explaining her passion for advocating to parents to read aloud and read her Ten read-aloud commandments.

It doesn’t matter what you read to your baby, but it can help to have age-appropriate books that can engage their senses and appeal to their skill level to keep their attention.

BabyPeg Member's tip: Why not create a pegged item for books. List the books you have and then add new books as you get them. Your friends and family can know what books you've collected already so that they can choose or lend you something you don't have yet. Any books you receive can be enjoyed many times over for many years to come.

Picture Book display

If you are going to have a collection of books, they will need somewhere to live. Displaying books at a low height in your baby’s room or play area and rotating books can help you have a visual reminder to read to your baby. Later, as your baby becomes mobile, they can have some independence to access the books to initiate 'reading' and interacting with the books.

 

Reading to your 0 to 3 month old

reading to from a young age

Very young babies enjoy hearing the sound and tone of your voice and having a cuddle. You can choose any text that you enjoy reading (it doesn't have to be children's content!), they will still benefit from hearing the language patterns and tone and be soothed by your voice. For newborns, any language they are exposed to helps them to develop pre-language skills. If you need more explanation of the importance of reading to your baby in the first 4 months of life - check out this short video from Mem Fox.

If you want your baby to look at the pictures in the book, hold it around 20cm from their eyes and see if they can focus on it. Initially, their colour and figure-ground discrimination will be still developing, so black and white images and patterns will capture their focus and interest more than less contrasting colours. They also love to look at faces, so books with pictures of people or other babies or a mirror image of themselves will be a hit. From about 2 months, their perception of colours will have improved, and you can introduce more colours.

Sitting and reading a book is a bonding experience that introduces them to what a book is, learn how the pages turn, see pictures and hear new words.

Before your baby can reach and grab accurately from around 3 months, you can use touch and feel books to guide their hands to the pages. Books that encourage touching and have easy to turn pages or lift-the-flap features, clear shapes and objects, and bold colours, mirrors or cause-and-effect sounds will easily engage your baby and keep their interest into toddlerhood. 

Once your baby starts to reach and grab and bring things to their mouth, the thick-paged board books will hold up better to exploration. This is great for you too, they can be free to explore, and you don't have to worry.

Examples of black and white newborn books available from Amazon Au are Black and White, Baby Touch: My First Book, Baby Animals Black and White & Black and White Nighty Night.

 

Interactive books


Sound and novelty books.png

There are many sorts of novelty and sound books available to buy. The most loved ones will have seen better days by the time your baby is done, as shown above, with the two books at the bottom of the picture. Both have chew marks and general wear and tear - all signs that these were much-loved books for different reasons. ‘Baby Boo’ had baby faces and pull out tabs with babies on them, and ‘Baa! I’m a sheep’ has a sheep that squeaks when pressed that appears on every page. With sound books, the options are to look for squeaky buttons (which will stand the test of time) or battery-operated buttons (which will eventually need replacement batteries).

 

 

 


Touch and feel books.png

Touch and feel books are great for babies and toddlers to engage their sense of touch when reading. Babies are encouraged by these books to explore the book with their hands and fingers to rub, press, squish, pat (like fur), pull on, and scratch. There can also be pull-out shapes, lift the flap sections and reflective shapes, and mirrors to further engage their senses. Some of the most loved books will be books that engage them in various ways, including counting, naming things, rhyming and singing, learning the alphabet, and learning shapes and colours.

 

 

 


Lift the flap books.pngIf taken care of, Lift-the-flap books, can entertain your baby well past their toddler years. Young babies enjoy the element of surprise when the flap is lifted, just as they do when playing peek-a-boo. Some of the best lift-the-flap books have a simple storyline and simple language such as the ’Spot’ series of books by Eric Hill and ‘Dear Zoo’ by Rod Campbell. Farm animal books are also guaranteed to delight.

There is a huge range of lift-the-flap board books which can take some rough treatment (you can relax too), or you can go for a paperback and guide your baby’s hand when handling the book and start to teach your baby how to be gentle and care for their books.

 

 

 


Some books have puppet play as a way of engaging your baby. These often have a puppet that pokes through the middle of each page. Other books have role-play puppets that fit over individual fingers or as a whole hand glove. You can have a lot of fun with different voices, finger movements and encouraging your baby to reach for and engage with the puppet.

Some examples of glove puppet books include:

 


Educational Books


From around 6 months, your baby may start to understand some frequently used words such as ‘mummy’, ‘daddy and ‘milk’. Simple picture books where you can point and name the objects can help your baby start learning nouns and expose them to the different combinations of sounds that make up words. Your baby will soak it all in and may start to experiment with imitating sounds back to you. It can be fun to have a ‘conversation’ with any sounds they make, taking turns to ‘talk’ back and forth. You can use your voice, gestures and expressions to help your baby understand and encourage them to participate.

If you have a range of board, cloth or Indestructibles books, your baby will have fun exploring the book with both hands to see how they can turn the pages. They will also want to explore it with their mouth, so the tougher the book, the more relaxed you can be in letting them interact with the book in any way they want.

 

Nursery Rhymes books.pngHaving at least 1 or 2 Nursery Rhymes books will be a great addition to your collection. Early childhood teachers love nursery rhymes for their educational richness including rhyming words, rhythmic and repetitive language, to encourage actions/movement/dancing/singing & learning numbers. For you, reading nursery rhymes can trigger nostalgia and transport you back to your childhood to your own feelings and experiences of hearing these same songs and rhymes. It can be fun re-learning the nursery rhymes and introducing these rhymes into everyday play and chats.

 

 

 


Educational board books.pngAll books are educational, however simple picture books with first words and numbers that match the pictures can be an easy way of helping your baby with pre-language skills and learning their first words. Books that can be read from birth over the first years include:

first 100 words book cover.jpg

  • First 100 words - There are a range of first 100 words books available which are worthwhile additions to your book collection. The books by Roger Priddy have photographs of real-life everyday things and include lift-the-flaps to explore colours, numbers, toys, opposites & animals. The only problem is that a few items have English names such as ‘Buggy’ instead of ’stroller’. There are other similar books available by DK, Scholastic & Discovery worth looking at as alternatives. There is also the Moomins Little Book of Words & Moomins Little Book of Numbers.

 


 

It doesn't matter what books you read with your baby. They will get something out of interacting with any book with you. They also can learn a lot from exploring books on their own. The book is a way of slowing down and being together, sharing language, exploring and having a cuddle. Books don't have to set you back financially, they are easy to pick up second-hand from op-shops, can be handed down through families and friends' circles and don't forget your local free book recycler, your local library. Many libraries offer bubs storytime classes which is a social way to enjoy books with your baby. If you can't go in person, there are ways to watch Story Time online. Books also make great presents to give and to receive. However you get your collection started, there's something for everyone when you read with your baby.

 

Book shopping destinations to explore:

Find Children's Books at Biome Eco Stores

Books from Lime Tree Kids including for 0-2 year olds

Shop Children's Books at Amazon.com.au including Most Gifted & books for 0-2 year olds

Shop all Kids Books from Toymate

Shop Baby, toddler and pre-schooler books at Toy Universe

 

Related reading: Check out our related Blog titled "Award-Winning Australian Children's Authors & Books"

 


Please note: Above all, any information on this website aims to provide general ideas for informational and educational purposes only. We encourage users to investigate several information sources, including, where necessary, independent individualised medical advice before making any decisions that could affect you or your child’s health or wellbeing.
 
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