Make story time a special part of your everyday. During these months, your baby will enjoy listening to simple and short books. Remember, babies love to hear a story over and over again.
Reading and Book Ideas:
- Choose books on topics that will interest your baby. Does your baby like trucks and cars? Animals? Books about everyday routines?
- Let your baby help you turn the pages.
- Change your voice for each character in the story.
- Try to involve your baby by talking about the story.
- It’s okay to switch to a different activity when your baby loses interest. Babies have short attention spans and may enjoy a book for a few minutes (or pages!) at a time.
- Make sure to point to the words and not just the pictures. This helps babies to connect that you are reading the words on the page.
- If you see that your baby understands a picture, take it a step further! Give the picture more description, for example it’s not just a cat, it’s a cat with grey fur that purrs and has pointy ears and a pink nose.
- Ask your child questions about the story such as, “Why is the little girl sad?”, “What is the monkey doing with his hands?” or “What do you think happens next?”
- It’s okay to turn the page before you’ve finished reading everything on it.
- Find tips on how to build your child’s library here.