The small bundle in your arms is growing quickly! By now your child knows your voices, your faces, and some daily routines. Smiles appear! Parenting is wonderful (overlooking the messy and cranky parts, of course). Those smiles melt your heart and erase the messes. Books also help with the cranky times. Your calm voice and the rhythm of your words are comforting for many situations. Try it! Books in that diaper bag can work wonders in many “waiting times” during a day.
Reading aloud is not difficult. Your child, liking the routines in his/her life, will also like you to read the same books the same way each time. (Sit in the same places at home, with favorite pillows or blankets or stuffed friends nearby, too.) So comforting.
Use various pitches in your voice to match the story. Make some sounds for the surprises in a story, even when the surprises aren’t surprises any longer. Your child will anticipate those surprise sounds anyway! This doesn’t necessarily mean LOUDNESS.
Remember, at bedtime you want a calming story.
Don’t go to extremes with the stories. After all, you’re not on stage. Your face and your eyes share the story’s events. You are going with your child through this tale. Relax and enjoy it yourself. Take time to look at the pictures and point out some things, for enjoyment, not “teaching.” Relate them to the child’s life and to the story. Riding in the car, for instance, you might see a barn or a fire truck just like the one in the story you read yesterday.
Reading aloud with your child is the most important thing you can do to help your child read. Be satisfied that you are taking steps toward independent reading each time you share a book aloud. You are beginning at infancy and you will continue for many years. Children who are older and can read independently still enjoy read-aloud time at home (and at school). There is always a book to share, too.
Submitted by Sharon Alm, guest author
Peace & Light,
Grace
Written by Grace Geller
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