The importance of sharing books - Sue Asquith - Early Childhood Consultant

Throughout history people have told stories to share their experiences, transmit knowledge and as a way of connecting people.  Storytelling evolves from primitive cave paintings to performances, hand-written manuscripts, printed books and now the digital era.

Why is it important?

Sharing books with babies and young children is really important for lots of reasons, for example:

• It’s a social time with your child, perhaps a bedtime story as part of the wind down routine of a busy day
• Sharing books and stories helps to develop children’s communication and language as well as helping them to understand the world
• It helps babies and young children to hear the sounds you are making to form words and then to understand that words have meaning
• It helps to build children’s listening and attention skills and boosts their cognitive abilities

Sadly, storytelling it is an art that is being slowly lost within our busy, sometimes hectic schedules and with the access to 24/7 TV programmes and streaming services.  However, it is important that we try keep this tradition alive as it gives children a flying start to life building strong foundations in communication, language and literacy skills. Just a few minutes a day can make a huge difference to your child’s development.

Sharing books with babies 

It is never too early to start sharing books.  Your baby may not understand what you are saying yet, but they do love being with you, hearing your voice and having snuggles.  Carrying a soft book made of material or a board book (with thicker pages) with you is ideal for times such as waiting for an appointment or if travelling on the bus, tube, tram or train. If you are travelling, it is also nice to point things of interest out to your baby/child and talk about what you see.  It’s a good idea to find/create a nice, relaxed moment during the day, such as after a feed or before a nap/sleep time, but if your baby becomes fussy it’s their way of saying “not just now, thank you”.

Check with your health visitor, there might be initiatives such as Bookstart packs for newborns and babies.  If not, you can join your local library to borrow books (sometimes there are story time sessions to attend in libraries too) or your childcare setting may have a lending library.

Sharing books with toddlers 

It does not matter if you aren’t a strong reader, it is the way that you tell the story that matters.  You do not need to read all the words in a book, you might want to talk about the pictures, the characters and colours, etc, pointing to things you are talking about to help your child to understand that words have meaning.  In time, you could ask your child questions such “can you point to the cat?”, etc.  

Try using different voices for the different characters. As your child becomes familiar with a book you might hear them joining in with any repeated lines and phrases throughout the book or you may see them acting the story out whilst playing.  

You may also find that your toddler has a favourite book and that they want that reading LOTS of times.  This is quite normal and sometimes it will be the same book for days, weeks or months!  Repetition is good as it is strengthening connections in your child’s brain.  Each time you share the book children will be noticing, practising or remembering different things. For example, they might be looking at the pictures, building up an image of the characters, learning how to turn the pages and remembering what comes next.  My youngest son loved Maisie’s Christmas Eve and we read it daily when he was 2 years old, from the beginning of December for months.  We bought him the Maisie Goes Camping book and started to introduce that to him too.  This worked well as the two books had the same characters, linking some of his previous knowledge and interests whilst extending his knowledge and interests into a different storyline (as well as saving our sanity)!   You can also use books to help your child with transitions, such as learning to use the potty or first experiences like going to the dentist and starting childcare/nursery.

Sharing books with pre-school children

It is great to be able to give your child the opportunity to develop a love of books.  Pre-school children often have interests in a certain film, TV programme or toys and you can use stories and non-fiction books to help extend their listening and attention skills.  Talking to your child is also important, but books can introduce children to words or concepts that they usually would not hear or see in everyday life.   

You could explore the signs of the seasons or find out more about their interest in dinosaurs or use a recipe to bake/cook something.  Try pointing to the words as you are reading; it will help your child to learn the connection between the spoken words and printed words and more about the words and sentence structure (for example in English, words start from the left and go to the right).  Some books have repeated lines and phrases, so your child may join in with the repeated words as though they are ‘reading’ as you/they point to the words; some books rhyme (you could talk about the end of the words sounding similar).

Spotting signs in the community (such as the supermarket sign/logo and road signs) are fun ways to extend reading and help your children to ‘read’ signs.  Learning to read words happens later, typically starting in your child’s reception year but everything mentioned above will help your child to develop vital skills and knowledge to build the foundations for communication, language and literacy,

I will continue to blog for you to extend the information on the parents hub – I hope to include information such as about helping your child with early reading and writing skills too! 

Top tips

• Reduce distractions (phone, TV, background noise)
• Find a cosy space
• See if your child wants to choose a book
• Make it interactive and exciting – use different voices for different characters
• Chat about the pictures and point to the things in the pictures
• Have fun with any rhyme or text repeats so your child can join in
• Ask your child questions about what happened or what they like the best, etc
• Encourage children to tell you a story about what they are seeing in the pictures
• ICT and screens are part of everyday life – it is nice to share a physical book with children, but there are lots of apps and e-books too to share together 
• Most of all have lots of fun