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

Throughout history storytelling has been a vehicle for sharing experiences, transmitting knowledge, and connecting people; evolving 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:

• A time for children to spend time with you or in small groups with other children
• Sharing books and stories helps to develop children’s communication and language
• It helps to build children’s listening and attention skills and boosts their cognitive abilities

Sadly, it is an art that is being slowly lost in families with the busy, hectic lifestyles, access to 24/7 TV programmes and streaming services.  However, it is important that we try keep this tradition alive. There is a blog on the parent hub page of my website called ‘The importance of sharing books’ which you might want to share with parents/carers.

Sharing books with babies 

It is never too early to start sharing books.  Babies may not understand what you are saying yet, but they are hearing you talk and listening to the sounds in the words that you are using. It is also a chance for babies and young children to build relationships with you as their key person.   It’s sometimes nice to find that nice, relaxed moment after a feed or before a nap/sleep time. It can be a time to have a ‘chat’ and laugh, but if a baby becomes fussy it’s their way of saying “not just now, thank you”.

Curriculum intent and implementation

Babies will start to coo, learn to babble, develop/say their first words and then up to 50 words before they are 2 years old.  Sharing books, talking, singing songs and rhymes, etc, helps them to build an understanding of how speech, language and communication works.  Listening to you will help babies to hear the sounds you are making within the words; in turn they will use these sounds to babble and continue on their journeys to learning to talk. 

Sharing books with toddlers 

It does not matter if you are not 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 the things that you are talking about helps children to understand that words have meaning.  In time you could ask children if they can point to “the cat”, etc.  

You may find that a toddler has a favourite book and that they want that reading LOTS of times.  Sometimes it will be the same book for days, weeks or months!  Repetition is good as it is strengthening connections in children’s brains; they will be looking at the pictures, building up an image of the characters, learning how to turn the pages and remembering what comes next, etc so potentially each time you read the story with them they are recapping something or learning something new.  

My youngest son loved Masie’s Christmas Eve and one year we read it daily from the beginning of December for months; we bought him the Masie Goes Camping book to try to extend his interest and started to introduce that to him too.  As the same characters were in both books this was a chance to link his knowledge and interests whilst extending his interests into a different storyline (as well as saving our sanity)!   You can also use books to help children with transitions such as learning to use the potty or first experiences like going to the dentist or expecting a new baby in their family.

Curriculum intent and implementation

Typically, toddlers will learn to say (their expressive language) 200 to 300 words before they are 3 years old and they need to be able to understand about 1000 words (this is their receptive language).  They will be building up some listening and attending skills and physical skills to turn the pages in the books. They may choose books and bring them to you to read.  Try to minimise distractions at story times and do not expect them to sit still for very long.  Remember that some children will not understand what you are saying yet, so group story times may not hold their attention.  Make it engaging and interactive, use different voices for different characters and using puppets or resources may help to keep their attention.  Make it fun!

Sharing books with pre-school children

It is great to be able to give children the opportunity to develop a love of books.  3 and 4 year olds 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 children is also important, but books sometimes introduce children to words or concepts that they usually would not hear or see in everyday life.   

Intent and implementation

You could explore the signs of spring (or the other seasons) or find about more about their interest in dinosaurs or use a recipe to bake something.  Try pointing to the words as you are reading; this will help children to learn the connection between the spoken words and printed words and that in English, words start from the left and go to the right of the page.  

Some books may rhyme or have repeated refrains in them and others may explore alliteration.  These are all precursors to learning formal phonics.

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,

Learning to read words happens later, typically starting in a child’s reception year, but everything mentioned above will help babies and children to gain vital skills and knowledge in an age and stage appropriate way to build the foundations of communication, language and literacy.  We can promote their awe and wonder, igniting their creativity, curiosity and imagination whilst boosting their vocabulary and cognitive abilities.

Reading exposes children to more understanding, more vocabulary and helps them to understand sentence structures.  You could ask questions such as “how do you think the giant felt when Jack took his golden harp?” and “what do you think will happen next?” You could also ask children about the favourite part of the book and tell them what your favourite part is too.

You could talk about the parts of the book (front cover, back cover, pages) and extend this into talking about the blurb, author and illustrator. 

Links to other areas of learning 

A story may lead to children role-playing or using resources to re-enact the story (recalling, sequencing and expressive arts).  

Other books may help children learn how to problem solve, or provide opportunities to explore their emotions and develop empathy (PSED, maths and active learning)

Children might make links to prior learning and other books – for example if reading The Magic Porridge Pot, children might remember that Goldilocks found baby bear’s porridge “just right!”

You could make your own books with the children about an outing you have been on, capturing moments from their time in your early years setting (to prompt conversations and talk about past and present) or starting school, etc.

Your enabling environments

Ensure that children have access to a wide variety of books, fact and fiction, and other types of print such as empty packets and boxes, recipe books or laminated recipes in the home corner (and mud kitchen if you have one), books about construction, maps and plans for the construction area.  Staff/parents may be able to tell stories in other languages to support children with English as an additional language and dual language books are useful to support children and families with EAL too. 

A reflective task

Take a careful look at your book area.  Is it an appealing area with some floor cushions, bean bags or a sofa to sit comfortably and enjoy sharing books?  Are books in a good condition and accessible or are they crammed into over full shelves with torn pages and front covers?  What about the range of books (fact and fiction and inclusive)?