The Importance of Reading with Your Children!
Reading has a tremendous impact on a child’s speech and language development. Throughout the month of July, the speech/language pathologists at Pediatric Interactions will be sharing with you a few of our favorite books we not only enjoy reading but also find to be very beneficial in regard to stimulating a child’s language development. We will also be giving examples of the skills targeted while reading these books. You can also find many videos on our Youtube playlist: Reading with Your Child. Monkey See, Monkey Read, and Bedtime Stories and Lullabies.
During these long summer days, we always encourage our families to set aside some of that extra time and spend it by reading to your children - all while expanding on your child’s imagination and language development! You know your child best! That means you are well aware of what interests and motivates your child. It is critical that from the very first time it is introduced, reading should be an enjoyable and pleasurable experience for both you and your child. For kiddos with language delays especially, reading may not come as easily for others as various skills are demonstrated (e.g maintaining appropriate attention, comprehending language, expanding vocabulary, etc.) In these cases especially, we encourage families to take the time that is spent reading to your child an enjoyable experience by choosing books that interest and motivate them. (Additionally, making reading a pleasurable experience may one day be the reason why your child chooses the book over the video games during their own downtime)!!
Tips for Reading Aloud to Your Child:
Use your finger as a guide while both pointing to and labeling various objects found in the pictures. Doing so will allow your child to begin associating words to pictures which will build on their receptive vocabulary.
Use your silly voice while reading aloud! Take advantage of the words written in all capital letters or when punctuation marks aside from a period are written (e.g. ‘!’, ‘?’). Incorporating intonation while reading teaches children how to convey meaning of language in multiple ways such as acting surprised, scared, or bored based on the context of the story).
Pause when reading a familiar book, especially one that has repeated phrases. Extend the last word you say so your child can anticipate something’s coming. This “break” allows your child to fill in the word. If they don’t, then say the word and continue to read. Find a book with repetitive words/phrases online at: https://www.pediatricinteractions.com/clinical-questions-blog/repetative-books.
Talk (or sing) about what you see on the page rather than reading the words of the story. This may be easier to understand and more interactive for younger children.
Introduce the story and ask your child what he/she knows about the topic or what they think is going to happen in the story based on the cover or title.
Ms. Carolyn and Ms. Sarah both love the book “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?”, by Bill Martin. This book allows the child to fill in expectant pauses as the phrases “....what do you see?” and “...looking at me” are repeated. This book also targets descriptive words which are used while labeling the colors of the animals. You can even prompt your child to respond to questions that include the different noises animals make! Watch the video of Ms. Sarah reading this book: https://youtu.be/nYxzGf7H2ik
Ms. Alyssa likes to read the interactive book "Don't Push The Button!" by Bill Cotter. This book helps support skills related to maintaining attention and engagement. While reading the story, the reader encourages the child to engage in movement by pushing the button or shaking the book.
Ms. Gail loves reading and interacting with books! When reading with younger children, she enjoys reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar"! This is a great book that can help children build food/fruit vocabulary, as well as reinforce the concept of hunger! This story can provide children with a foundational language to promote "I am hungry". Other targets during this story could be "more", "turn" (the page), "eat", "hungry", and counting! When reading with older children, one of her favorite stories is "Dragons Love Tacos"! While reading this story, reading can promote discussion of favorite foods, non-preferred foods, discuss tastes and textures, responses to non-preferred foods, as well as helping friends! Watch the video of Ms. Jill reading this book: https://youtu.be/Z2N0XDjDfhE
One of Ms. Jill’s favorite children’s books is “Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes” Ms. Jill likes this book because you can easily incorporate using gestures such as, placing your hands to your cheeks or head for "Oh no!" which encourages imitation of actions, a precursor to talking. Watch the video of Ms. Jill reading this book: https://youtu.be/NN9OQT4or1s
Ms. Lisa’s absolute favorite book is “The Giving Tree”, by Shel Silverstein. She uses this with older kids to target multiple meanings but I also target pragmatic skills and how we treat other people. It helps teach kids to not just be the taker of all things but to learn to be a giver. It can touch on personification as well as inferences and figurative language. This book is a gem. For younger kids, I use it to target being nice to others and to addressing feelings
Written by Carolyn Radecki, MS, CFY-SLP/L
All month long, we’ll be sharing resources on our FaceBook and Pinterest Pages.