Literacy news

Helping under-threes develop a love of books

2 Sep 2004

Parents and carers often feel overwhelmed by the size of the 'books for babies' sections in shops and don't know what to select. Choosing is difficult as most books are more suitable for walking, talking toddlers than for babbling babies.

Selecting books

Babies and toddlers need books to fulfil their potential and satisfy their innate desire to find out about their world. As boys' brains develop differently from girls' their interests differ; boys tend to prefer information books.

The books published include:

• Storybooks with rhyming or narrative text
• Information books
• Rhyme/song books introducing one rhyme/song or a selection
• Novelty books with interactive features - flap up, full tag

Photographs or coloured artwork are used as illustrations. Research on what younger babies see is ongoing, but it is evident that contrasts, and photographs of familiar faces and objects, are easily recognised during this period. Babies of five to six months giggle when they recognise themselves in the mirror and pore over homemade photograph books of their family and pets.

When selecting books, look at the illustrations carefully as this is what conveys meaning to babies and toddlers, and what makes them remember a book. If the text appears too complicated they may appreciate the rhythm, but understanding will depend on the way the adult talks about the pictures.

Learning about books

How adults treat books provides a role model for toddlers, who are capable of selecting a book and putting it away. Older babies should learn that books:

• Are kept in special places - book corners or shelves accessible even to crawlers
• Should be treated carefully as pages tear and need to be closed before being put away
• Have a beginning and end, and a front cover that tells us about the book
• Have pages that need to be turned to find out more

With experience they soon realise that the text is for the adult to read and the picture is for information. Make a book of children's photographs together and they will soon appreciate the book-making process and have more respect for books as a result.

Introducing books

Adults act as a mediator between a picture book and a child. Children rarely pick up a book and read it without some introduction to it.

Without a carefully prepared initial presentation, a baby or toddler can soon lose interest in a book. Each time adults reread a book, they naturally introduce more information and language. As a book becomes more familiar with rereading, the adult's role diminishes as the child begins to take over. Eventually the book becomes so familiar that the baby or toddler is ready to browse alone.

Reading aloud

Reading aloud may include:

• Reading the text as it is printed
• Reading the main text, leaving descriptive language for later readings
• Talking about the story, content and pictures
• Paraphrasing all or part of the text
• Linking the text to the child's experiences, and transferring words or phrases to real-life experiences

Rereading a book is important as, apart from helping to consolidate brain connections, children gain confidence from revisiting the familiar. They are also ready to have impressions extended through related activities.

Book browsing

As older babies and toddlers take on their own personal relationship with a book they need time to browse, turning the pages when they are reading and often talking to themselves as they read. Browsing is a form of child-led play and, like all forms of play, it consolidates and deepens an experience. It also develops the use of language as it is often a rehearsal for passing on information through story-telling. If a book experience is to be complete there must be time for browsing. This form of play needs to be encouraged if children are to become book lovers.

Book corners

Sharing books should be a different experience from reading at bedtime, when you are trying to help children to wind down and prepare them for sleep. A book corner should be somewhere special and comfortable where children can snuggle up to the adult and feel good. It should be where familiar books are kept, and where babies and toddlers can browse. Parents need to be encouraged to create the same sort of special reading place at home. If parents' literacy skills are poor and they are hesitant about reading aloud to their children, encourage them to talk about the pictures. In time they may develop the confidence to read all of the text.

Developing visual literacy

Young children rely on a visual code for understanding and most of their first memories are visual. Children need more time than adults to focus on pictures, but get quicker as their skills develop. Watch a baby or toddler look at a new picture:

• Eyes skim from side to side, and from top to bottom
• Eyes return to scan something not taken in
• Eyes review globally
• Head turns towards the adult to indicate that they are finished and ready to move on

Wait for this 'ready-to-turn the page' signal. Children see pictures through their own eyes, involving their own experiences, emotions and feelings, and adults should be careful not to impose their ways of 'seeing'. Talk about pictures, describing things to extend their vocabulary. Any questions should be open-ended, giving children time to reflect and talk about the way they see or feel things.

Most picture books are illustrated by artists, which gives very young children an opportunity to come into contact with many pieces of artwork at one time. Research has shown that these encounters have a life-long influence on creativity and imagination.

Reading about feelings

Reading stories helps children to:

• Recognise and define themselves
• Recognise and help to manage personal emotions and bad behaviour
• Share emotions confidently with a sympathetic adult
• Reflect on book experiences and relate them to their own life, even transferring words or phrases to real-life situations
• Explore fear and risk-taking in a situation that poses no real danger as the experience is contained

Humour

Laughter is good for us; it changes attitudes and eases tensions. Humour - the gap between what you expect and what actually happens - can make us laugh, and doing something that makes children laugh can diffuse negative situations.

Babies and toddlers have to learn to laugh and learn about humour, but do so quickly if they are given the opportunity. Young children often pick this up through the illustrations. Older toddlers begin to create humour themselves, including playing with sounds.

Summary

Our identities are made up of memories and every book experience adds something new. From birth to the age of three, books are free of the later pressures of beginning to read and write, so children have time to enjoy them while unconsciously building solid foundations for literacy. Children need books but to love them they need to share them with enthusiastic mediators.

(Taken from 'Page by page', Opal Dunn, Nursery World)

Tags: Talk To Your Baby

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