My late husband Kaanan and I, both are book lovers – there are bookcases all around our house and we naturally wanted to share our passion for books with our daughter, Zoya. Also, reading expands a kid’s vocabulary, helps in language development and also helps in development of concepts as their mind experiences various concepts and perspectives through books.
Start Reading from Day 1
We read to her from the very first day and the first two books with which we started were: Mother Goose’s Nursery Rhymes – by Axel Schefler and The Daddy Goose Collection – by Vivian French. We read these for the first few months and to make her relate better with rhymes, we also played the same on music system (I used itunes version of Mothergoose club).
Pop-Up Books are Exciting
From the fourth month onwards, we introduced big pop-up/out books or books with big illustrations where the content was more sing-song. This fascinated her a lot at this stage. Some of the book titles that I would recommend are: The very silly sheep, The very busy Bear, The crunching, munching caterpillar, The very busy bee, – all by Jack Tickle (there are more titles by the same author, all equally interesting). I remember how Zoya’s eyes would open wide looking at the illustrations and she would squeal with excitement and eagerness.
Sound Books: Kids Love Sounds
Once a child knows how to explore sound button on objects or musical toys, it’s time to introduce the sound books to them. Children love these books! I remember Zoya would sometimes ask us to read the same title five or six times in a row as she loved the sounds. Some of the books that we read to her at this time are: Farm Alarm – by Jack Tickle (she absolutely loved the book and the sound button), Oink-Oink from Peppa Pig series , Santa’s Surprises – by Liz Conrad (this plays Jingle bells) and a few others similar titles.
Touch, Feel, Find Everything!
Then comes the exploratory stage, where children have started to crawl and want to touch, feel and find everything – this is the best time to introduce “touch and feel”and “Peekaboo” books. Again, some titles that I can recommend are: Who is it – by Disney Baby, Dear Zoo – by Rod Campbell, Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt, Goodnight Moon etc.
Singalongs
Some of the books that are fun singalongs and which kids start enjoying dancing and singing at this age are – Chicka Chicka boom boom and Moo Baa La la la by Sandra Boynton.
We pretty much read everything and anything to her and since we introduced books early, she was a mature reader at an early age. I think it made her less restless as a baby. She could easily sit for hours reading books with us and hence, there was less fascination for things like TV, computer or our phones which is a challenge that parents face these days (I will write my take on this as well).
Here, I have shared reading recommendations for the first 12 months and again, this is what worked for us.
Will share a follow up post on books that we introduced after this.
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