Language and Literacy Development With Book-Time

Sharing book-time with your child is a great way to support their language and literacy development. It can deepen bonds and can blossom into a love of books. Books can bring new worlds to your child!

But My Child Doesn’t Look At Books

For new book learners, show them what to do with a book and help them to enjoy the experience. Try the following.

• Give predictability by repeating what you do:
  • turn each page;
  • lift a flap on each page;
  • or touch a furry/bumpy/smooth insert on each page.
• Make it fun by saying, singing or doing something brief and similar each time:
  • “Let’s see what’s next! It’s a ____!”;
  • “Something’s hiding. Here it is!”;
  • “Old McDonald had a farm e-i-e-i-o. And on his farm he had a ______ e-i-e-i-o.”;
  • “The horse in the barn says ‘moo, moo, moo’. The duck in the barn says, ‘quack, quack, quack'”;
  • “It’s so soft!” “It’s so bumpy! “It’s so smooth!.
• Repeat interesting voice intonations, facial expressions and body movement to add anticipation and excitement.

Steps to Success

• Start with books your child likes. Interesting pictures create great material for conversations.
• You don’t have to read the text in the book. You can talk about pictures instead. Singing familiar lines from songs can provide great opportunities for learning, especially for gestalt language learners.
• Emphasize important words and new vocabulary.
• Show interest in what your child does or says. Sometimes repeat back what they say to let them know you hear them and are following along: “Ya, it’s a giant spider!”
• Follow you child’s interests by building on what they do or say: “Ya, it’s a giant spider! Look at its hairy legs!”
• Take turns with your child by responding briefly right after your child does or says something. Then wait for them to take a turn.
• Keep your language brief. Too much language can make it difficult for your child to understand and maintain interest.
• Model actions and language by doing or saying examples of what your child appears to be ready to do, according to their language learning stage.
• Help your child to have fun, and reduce any pressure to imitate what you model.
• If you think a particular book might be too long for their attention span, a book with less pages might be good to start. (You can stick pages together or skip pages to get through the book faster if needed. However, notice whether skipping pages is reducing the fun factor for your child.)

Watch Out For “Testing Questions”!

“What colour is that?” “What is that called?” These kinds of “testing questions” often create anxiety for children. They reduce opportunities for development of spontaneous engagement and full language learning. If you know the answer to a question, it is usually best to comment instead: “Look, it’s a red truck!” “That’s alligator is big!” A good guideline is to save questions for when:

• you don’t know the answer;
• asking for your child’s preference, feelings or opinions;
• encouraging your child to predict what might happen next;
• asking about what caused a problem, how to prevent a problem or how to solve a problem;
• asking about what your child thinks a character might be feeling or thinking, or how a character feels about a situation and why.

Have Fun!

When your child is enjoying book-time with you, they will want to keep going. That creates great memories and many opportunities for learning!