A Child’s First Library is wonderful. My daughter has made very good improvement. It’s a great investment - thanks again!”
(Dr. Suran Chaminda, Galle, Sri Lanka.
How to Tell if Your Baby Loves Reading
Rock your baby and she falls asleep. Pick her up and she stops crying. It’s nice when your baby gives you clear indications that your efforts at making her happy have been successful. At least, you know you’re giving her what she wants.
But, how do you know if your baby’s enjoying the books you read to her?
How can you tell if she’s really benefiting from all that reading you do or if she even likes it.
Some signals are straightforward enough. But, sometimes, you may have to perk up your observation antennae to read the signs. When you pay just a little more attention than usual, you’ll be surprised at how much you can discover about the kind of books your baby enjoys, her favorite time to read to her and even the tone of voice or pitch she prefers. So, what are some of those signs?
- Your baby seems more relaxed, less agitated, settles down in your lap or by your side. It’s not easy to get a baby who’s begun moving independently to stay in one place for more than a few minutes. So, if your baby continues to hang around after you’ve been reading a few minutes, you can safely assume you’re doing something right.
- She pretends to read herself. She may not know her left hand from her right yet, but she already thinks she can read. If your baby picks up a book at random and begins to ‘read’ it, imitating you in the process, it’s a clear sign that she enjoys it.
- She likes being around books. She enjoys visits to the book store and library. She looks at picture books by herself, even if just for a few minutes. It doesn’t matter if she holds the books upside down or if they’re just board books. The fact that she chooses to engage herself with books is proof enough.
- She responds to you as you read to her. Very young babies may flap their hands or start kicking in the air rapidly when they realize you’re reading to them. They may smile at you, look at you wide-eyed or make cooing noises. They may even try to ‘answer’ when you ask a question. They may try to grab the book (even if only to chew it.) As babies grow older, they begin to point to things they recognize, and later to label them. They enjoy turning pages. They love choosing the books they want to read.
- She asks questions. Lots of them. If you have been reading to your child since she was very young, you are likely to see that as she grows older, she becomes more and more curious about the characters and events in the books you read. She is bound to ask you why a certain character acted in a certain way or what a word means, or where a certain place is and whether you can go there. The more you read, the more she asks. The more you tell her, the more interested she is in learning even more.
- She makes connections. Your baby begins to find relations and associations between various aspects of real life and the ones in the books you read. For example, your baby may experiment with dropping cheerios from her snack box as you take a walk in the park. Of course, she’s only trying to ensure she finds her way back like Tom Thumb did. Or maybe she’ll ask the mirror who the fairest of them all is.
- She chooses reading over (gasp!) TV. And although this might not happen very often – when it does, you can finally pat yourself for a job well done. All that reading to your baby has indeed begun paying off when you ask your little, independent thinker “TV or Book?” and on one of those rare evenings, she actually replies, “ Book”.
And that’s really the only reason you need to start reading to your kids today.
