Advice from an English Teacher about Reading to Your Toddler

As a pretty new mom, I wouldn't think of writing a blog post about how to parent a toddler, but as a teacher who taught middle school and high school for four years (and first grade for a few months), I want to encourage you to be intentional about the way you read to your toddler. Reading to young children may be doing more than you think.

To be intentional it's important to have a good idea of your ending point, your goal. Older kids and adults who are good readers and who enjoy reading use these strategies:

• They stop and ask themselves questions.
• They make connections to their own lives, the knowledge they have, and other books they've read.
• They go back and reread what they don't understand or don't remember.
• They periodically summarize what they've just read.
• They look at the pictures in the book or on the front of the book and think about how the words they are reading go with the pictures.
• They look up difficult vocabulary words or use context clues find their meaning.

If you're a good reader, you probably do this without thinking about it, and you may not realize you were taught to do this, but someone who read to you probably talked you through these strategies. You should be talking your child through these strategies as well. You can start doing this with a toddler, but it's still beneficial to continue to practice these strategies with older kids.

It's really easy to teaching these good habits to young kids. As you read to your toddler, stop and ask your toddler questions. For example, there's a dog barking in the story, you could say something like "Do you see the dog in the picture? The dog is barking. Woof. Woof. Do we have a dog? Where is our dog?" These questions help the child think about the picture, think about what's going on, make connections, and increase vocabulary.

The pictures in a children's book are very important. They allow a child who can't yet read words to read a book by themselves. The better you explain the pictures as you read, the better your child will be able to "read" and enjoy the book.

Besides these comprehension strategies, you can help your child to read all three ways that older children and adults read. The three ways to read are to have someone else read to you, read to yourself, or read to someone else. Obviously, you'll start by reading to your child and explaining the pictures. Then, your child should be able to "read" or summarize the book for themselves or for you.

I hope this helps!

Jordon