Talking to learn…learning to talk..the value of books
On the weekend a friend of mine gave me a book she has written! My kids are super impressed that we have a book signed by the author!
It reminded me though of the ‘why’ I love books so much for our kids.
Not only are they a gateway to new vocabulary (and research shows that the more robust our children’s vocabulary the greater success they have when learning at school) but they are also the perfect conversation starter.
They offer you a chance to talk about values and differences. Amy’s book is wonderful for this.
First we learn to talk and then we talk to learn.
As our children start school they need to be able to use language to learn.
Reading books with preschoolers is a great way to introduce them to using language to predict what might happen next. This is a very important skill to have as they go off to school.
Questions like:
• “What might happen next?”
• “How do you think he feels?”
• “What do you think she said?”
• “What could that be?”
These conversations help young kids to use their language skills to talk about the things that are not necessarily in front of them and to get them to think about what might be.
There is no right way to read a book .
Just read it.
Start at the beginning or in the middle.
Read the words or just look at the pictures.
Eat it or not – that depends on age. I highly encourage you to get board or hard plastic books for young children so they can munch as they need.
You can’t go wrong but you can have a lot of fun.
If you have a young child and finding yourself a little unsure how their communication is developing then I have an ebook (Is this normal? Typical milestones for speech development from birth to four years) that could be useful.