Reading with Your Toddler
Reading with a toddler can be quite the adventure. They have discovered so much about their world and love to be independent. What does this mean for reading? Well, they love to hold the book and turn the pages. This often equates to thrown books, ripped pages, and skipped pages. Plus, they continue to have short attention spans (which can be lengthen depending on their interest) and are easily distracted. Further, between the age of 1 to 3, their attention span should increase from about 3 to 5 minutes up to around 10 to 15 minutes. This increased attention makes it much more enjoyable to read with your toddler.
We explore some of our families favorite books to share with our toddlers throughout the year. Some of these books are classics that have survived the test of time while others are more new, but still just as enjoyable. Toddlers delight in books with vivid pictures about concepts familiar to them, especially animals and babies. However, it’s always nice when they can learn a little something too!
Teaching Your Toddler to Love Books
So how should parents help their toddlers to continue to enjoy books and begin to develop a love of reading? Be sure to set aside time to explore books with your toddler. This might be allowing your little one to enjoy turning the pages of sturdy books, pointing out pictures, or making up a story. Your toddler may enjoy sitting in your lap and listening to a few pages of a book. Sometimes this means reading the same book or page over and over again for days on end.
At this age, your little one is developing preferences as well as wanting things they don’t need. And yes, reading the same book over and over might get old, but allowing your child to have their want met can go along way when you need them to do something they don’t want to do (like put on a coat in the middle of winter or go into the car seat when you have somewhere to go).
Turn the Book Over to Your Toddler
Just as we need to let our little ones begin to dress themselves and hope they start to use the potty too, we also need to turn books over to them. Toddlers aren’t quite as gentle with books as older children and adults though, so do expect a few mishaps in their future. When you read with your toddler, sturdy books are amazing. You won’t fret about putting the book in your little ones hands and they can easily turn the pages.
While reading books with your toddler, let your little one hold the book. Putting the book in your toddler’s hands gives them a little control with the story. They can practice turning the pages, pointing to pictures, and even learn how to hold the book the right way. Even if they can’t yet read the words, they are part of the reading journey just by getting their hands on the book.
For more fragile books like family favorites, pop up books, and even library books, set these on a high shelf. This keeps the books insight so your toddler knows you can read them, but makes them something special to read with an adult. It’s okay to set rules with these special books and explain to your toddler that these books should only be read with an adult. Just be sure to talk about this before starting to read so your little one doesn’t fight you for control. Well, they might anyways but then you can put the book back on the shelf to try again another day.
Developing Language when you Read with Your Toddler
At this age, exploring books is really about helping your little one to grow to love books, stories, and facts. By reading books, you continue to expose your child to lots of new language, which helps to develop both receptive (listening) and expressive (speaking) language. The more books and words that your child hears in their early years, the better prepared they are for school success.
Not only are you helping to increase your child’s vocabulary, but they are learning new language patterns, grammar, and learning about the world around them with each new book. Reading is also a great way to work on other skills too such as colors, shapes, naming objects, and animal sounds. As your child grows, repetitive language and rhymes become very engaging when found in books. They enjoy these phrases because they find they can start to help with the reading too! So many of our favorites are designed to encourage your little one to read with you.
Favorite Books
Below are some of our favorite books to read with toddlers, but also continue to be favorites for years to come as well. For toddlers, we continue to love cloth books and board books since the pages are more sturdy and less damage can be caused. Don’t be surprised when your little one chooses a favorite book and asks you to read it again and again. If you are looking for books for your infant or preschool, check out our posts on our favorite books.
Poke-a-Dot Books
We love, love, love these poke-a-dot books with our toddler. Many of these stories are a song or nursery rhyme written in a new and engaging way. Children love these stories since they often times know some of the words and phrases so they can participate too.
With a poke-a-dot book, we do little reading and much more pointing. These books are designed with repetitive songs and beautiful pictures. The pictures have a dot in the middle that your little one can poke (think bubble wrap but that can be used again and again). Not only are these great for the repetitive language but they encourage your little one to begin pointing to pictures. Plus they work on developing one to one correspondence, counting, and even fine motor skills.
Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do you See?
One of our favorite all time books among all our children: Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do you See? Toddlers love the repetitive language and the beautiful pictures. With this book, they also enjoy predicting what comes next and seeing the mix match of colors. Some animals use standard colors while some animals’ colors do not match reality. My toddlers have always loved pointing out the strange colors and “correcting” the illustrator.
Each page is a layout of asking the animal (or people) what it sees and then having the animal reply with what they saw. The next page repeats the question and answers with the new animal. It quickly becomes one of the first books that our little ones have read to us and a book that we read and hear again and again.
Pete the Cat
A favorite character to add to your home library: Pete the Cat. There are so many great Pete the Cat books and he teaches such a great message about keeping a positive message no matter the situation. Plus many of these books are paired with learning colors, numbers, or even naming places and items. In addition, your little one will love the repetitive language and predictability of these books. Before you know it, your baby will read to you! What an exciting day that is!
Eric Carle Books
Any book by Eric Carle draws a toddler’s attention with the beautiful pictures and silly stories. So many of these books teach concepts including counting, colors, body parts, and animal sounds. My own children have all loved naming and pointing at the beautiful pictures as well as “reading” these books to others. For example, The Very Hungry Caterpillar is our absolutely favorite and they love all the holes in the book going through all the different foods that the caterpillar eats.
Good Night Gorilla
Another staple in our library is Good Night Gorilla. This is a mostly wordless book where the pictures tell the story of a zookeeper locking up the zoo as the gorilla lets all the animals out of their cages and they follow the zookeeper home. What great fun for your little one to name the different animals and try to find them on the dark page filled with their white eyes. The sneaky gorilla will become a favorite character among your family.
Press Here
The book Press Here is a simple story that encourages your toddler to interactive with the story. Your little one will press dots, shake pages, and even tilt the book to see what happens to the little dot throughout the story. This book is great because it involves your child in the story and encourages them to listen to the words to see what to do next. Plus they are pointing on so many different pages and working on colors too! Such a simple little favorite for so many little ones.
Pigeon Books
The Pigeon books by Mo Williams are such a joy for little ones and if you have bigger ones, these are great books for your children to read together. For example, my little ones have loved “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus” and “The Pigeon Needs a Bath.”
These books focus on pigeon who either wants to do something he isn’t supposed to or doesn’t want to do something that he needs to do. Throughout the story, pigeon interacts with the reader by asking the reader many questions, pouting, plain old refusing, begging, etc. Your little one will love being able to tell the pigeon “No” and see all the silly things pigeon tries.
No, David! Books
No, David! is another family favorite where we cannot seem to get enough. Our little ones have loved the trouble-making David and seeing all the naughty activities that he can do. Plus it’s a great time to talk with your toddler about these activities and how to be behave. Moreover, at the end, David’s mother shows that he is loved no matter the trouble that he has gotten into throughout the story. The story uses simple phrases that our little ones have always loved to repeat.
Touch Think Learn Books
Touch Think Learn: Wiggles is a great book to help get your little one pointing and following along in a book. This book is written with simple directions, encouraging the child to follow the directions while interacting with the story book. Throughout this book, your child will learn to make many different lines necessary for learning to write too! These pre-writing shapes are so important for forming letters as they grow. Touch Think Learn has many other great books for teaching lots of different concepts. Be sure to check out their alphabet book too.
Usborne Touchy-Feely Books
And of course, your toddler library would not be complete without a tactile touching book. The Usborne touchy-feely books are so great for allowing your little one to feel a variety of different textures while learning about the different parts of the animals. Such a simple story that will have your little one turning pages and even discovering favorite pages of their own.
Enjoy the Experience when you Read with your Toddler
While the time that you read with your toddler teaches them so much, remember this time is also for you. This is the perfect time to get your little mover and shaker to settle down for a snuggle. While you read with your toddler, you can enjoy the this time to cuddle with your baby again. Share things you love with your little one and delight in all the things they know. We sneak in a few hugs and kisses too.
Reading with your toddler also makes a great addition to any nap or bedtime routine. The thought of a story might just entice your toddler up to their bedroom. And if not the story, some one on one time with mom or dad might do the trick. And on particularly difficult nights, sometimes the magic of a story can bring everyone a little tranquility right before bed. Plus you don’t even have to think of the words to say, you just read what was already written. Story time with your kids can be the perfect time for you to unwind from your busy day too.
Drop us a comment below and share your favorite books to read with your toddler and any other tips and tricks you might have for making this experience more enjoyable for your toddler and yourself.