(The Right Way to) Read Books With Your Toddler!
By Hannah O’Driscoll, MSc. CCC-SLP
Reading to your baby can be a daily activity from birth. Reading is essential not only for language and speech development, but also builds on your baby’s attention skills. Research suggests children who love shared book reading from a young age often become avid lifelong readers.
Top tip: Try reading face-to-face with your baby or toddler. This means putting them facing you on your knee, or having them sit on the couch or chair while you kneel/sit in front of them.
Being face-to-face with your baby when reading will allow you to see what they are looking at, signaling what they are interested in! This then gives you a wonderful opportunity to point to the pictures and name them. Reading face-to-face also allows your little one to see your facial expressions and mouth movements, which they will begin to imitate over time.
Don’t worry about sticking to the story. Instead, point to pictures, label them and repeat words over and over. If your child wants to turn the page before it’s finished, let them!
Hannah O’Driscoll (MSc. CCC-SLP) is a speech and language therapist and early language expert. Hannah has spent most of her career working in early intervention, and has helped hundreds of parents help their children reach and exceed their language milestones.
Hannah has recently launched Daisy Plays, a platform of self-paced online courses for parents of babies and toddlers. The courses share simple, research-backed strategies, tools, tips, tricks and techniques to support and empower parents with professional knowledge that will make an impactful difference on their child’s communication abilities in those early years.
Hannah really believes all parents have the ability to create really meaningful interactions and language learning opportunities with their child when given the right support and direction. Her passion is driven by the ample amount of research suggesting that early language skills ensures better social, academic and literacy success, and reduces temper tantrums associated with the frustration of not being to express needs and wants.
Hannah is a mom, and knows how busy a parents day is. Therefore, her online courses focus solely on creating language learning opportunities and intentionally building a child’s communication skills through everyday routines and playtime!
