I'm a professional Recommended resources Engaging children through books Turning Pages Through the Ages: Engaging Children Through Books by Frances Clark (LSLS Cert AVT®) and Louise Honck (LSLS Cert AVT®) Below we have set out what children are expected to do at different ages, the appropriate books for these ages and activities to try with the books at each age and stage. Download printable version .PDF What children can do Books to enjoy Examples of activities to try 0-6 months Able to focus visually on a book from three months By 6 months, grabs and mouths books Geometric shapes, colours Books with simple, bright pictures Hard cardboard books that can stand up Books with pictures of familiar objects and people Cloth or vinyl books Baby Talk by AVUK Talking ahead using symbolic sounds e.g. “round and around and around” and then show the round geometric shape in the book Talking ahead with the baby talk books by using a symbolic sound e.g. “mmm mmmm” and then show the picture of baby eating 6-12 months Joint attention develops (this means that baby and adult are thinking about the same thing at the same time). 7-9 months: gestures for up, bye- bye, clapping hands Peekaboo Demonstrates anticipation Turns pages with help Pointing to objects Begins to understand “Where’s….?” Books containing photos of baby faces Touch and feel books Books with flaps to open and close Large, clear, realistic photographs of objects to encourage pointing with index finger Books about routine events, e.g. eating, sleeping Peekaboo books: Peek-a-Baby: A lift the Flap Book by Karen Katz Build in actions: “mmm mmmm” -> pretend to feed baby pictured in book (this occurs earlier than feeding the toy and after being able to pretend to feed oneself) “kiss kiss” -> kiss the baby in the book “bye bye” -> wave to babies in the book Play peekaboo with babies/pictures in lift the flap books Use rhythm, rhyme and repetition to stimulate the listening part of the brain Ask questions: “Where’s the…?” 12-18 months Demonstrates understanding of objects and people by pointing Recognises body parts Imitates actions e.g. patting a doll Finds hidden objects, lifts the flap Points to favourite picture and comments on it Begins to fill in the gaps e.g. “Oh no look, we need mummy, we need___” Requests repetition Turns pages Pictures of children doing familiar things Books with predictable or repetitive text Lift the flap books Simple plots with a problem and a solution e.g. Where’s Spot? by Eric Hill Oh Dear! by Rod Campbell Talk about what babies are doing “let’s find the baby that is washing” Simple Plots: e.g. Spot – “Uh oh! Where’s Baby?” “Baby! Baby!” “Can you knock knock knock?” (encourage child to do action)“Can you open?” (encourage child to open flap) “Can you turn the page?” “No Baby! No no no” “Where’s Baby?” Read the child’s “thought bubble” when they point e.g. “Yes, it’s yuck, can you wipe wipe?” Act out story with toys and props e.g. play with Spot, providing toys for all the animals in the book. For each animal say “No no no!” till Baby is found. Leave gaps for the child to fill e.g. “We need to …..” point to flap and wait for “Knock knock knock” or “Open”. 18 months Follows two actions Imitates symbolic play Understand object by function Boo Hoo Baby by Cressida Cowell & Ingrid Godon. Hug by Jez Alborough, Monkey Puzzle by Julia Donaldson Give two actions e.g. “First we feed and then we wipe baby” Act on pictures using objects e.g. a brick representing a brush Pretend baby is crying “Wah wah wah, baby needs to eat, can you find her something for eating?” whilst giving the child an option of two objects (one being something for eating and one being another object not related to eating) Carry out action on small toy or the book 2- 3 year olds Follows plot Starts to understand a range of emotions Understands how pictures related to story Recites familiar phrases and may recite the story Books that contains a few characters and a repetitive story structure and plot Fairy tales e.g. Goldilocks and the three bears, Three Billy Goats, The three little Pigs, The enormous turnip Rhyming books e.g. The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson Once children understand a plot of a story well, start to talk about how characters might feel e.g. Alfie gets in first by Shirley Hughes Relate books to child’s experiences Retell story using: role-play, small-world play, arts and crafts Draw on characters’ experience for development of emotional vocabulary e.g. “The little boy is locked inside the house and Mummy is outside. How does Mummy feel?” 4-5 year olds Ability to converse beyond the here and now: progress from talking about what they can see to more abstract conversations about objects, events and people not currently present. Understand higher level language concepts such as false belief (understanding that others can have beliefs about the world that are different to yours). Increased development of phonological awareness Growth in emotional vocabulary to go beyond happy and sad (e.g. Proud, relief, worried) Smiley Shark by Ruth Galloway Little Red Riding Hood Bark George by Jules Feiffer Duck in a Truck by Jez Alborough Chapter books can be introduced at about 5 years old, books above the child’s language level stimulate their language development and ability to converse about abstract concepts. Phonological awareness activities: rhyme, initial/end sound recognition, segmenting and blending Following text with your finger, developing knowledge about correspondences between spoken word and text Discuss what a character might feel and why Make inferences – e.g. “The fish are all caught in the fisherman’s net. What might he do with them?” Develop abstract thinking and problem-solving: e.g. “What could the character do? Use “casual explanatory talk” (being explicit in linking everyday occurrences to emotions), to describe emotions: “The little boy’s Mummy is very proud because he won a prize”. Develop false belief understanding e.g. “We know that Red Riding Hood’s granny is the wolf, but Red Riding Hood doesn’t know”. Develop Theory of Mind by asking the child to give the characters dialogue e.g. “What should the duck say to his naughty friend?” References and further reading Arama, D., Fine, Y. & Ziv, M. (2012). Enhancing parent-child shared book reading interactions: Promoting references to the book’s lot and socio-cognitive themes. Early Childhood Research Quarterly 28 (2013) 111-122. Barnett, R., & Crowe, L.K. (2008). Traditional versus electronic storybooks during adult-toddler interactions. Undergraduate Research Journal for the Human Sciences, 7 Bus, A.G, Leseman, P.P and Keultjes, P (2000). Joint Book Reading Across Cultures: A comparison of Surinamese-Dutch. Turkish-Dutch and Dutch parent-child dyads., Journal of Language Research. 32 (1) 53-76. Bus, AG.; Mol, S.E & Jong, N.T (2009). Interactive Book Reading in Early Education: A tool to stimulate Print Knowledge as Well as Oral Language: Review of Education Research: June 2009, 79:979-1007. Clancy, S., Kay, R., Lambert, B., & Williams, P. (1998). Peeling back the layers: A study of children’s thinking competencies within a story context. Journal of Australian Research in Early Childhood Education, 1, 1–14. Curenton , S. M. (2010). Understanding the landscapes of stories: The association between pre-schoolers' narrative comprehension and production skills and cognitive abilities. Early Child Development and Care, 181, 791–808. Des Jardin, J.L.; Doll, E; Stika, C; Eisenburg, L; Johnson, K, Ganguly, D; Colson; B and Henning, S (2014). Parental Support for Development During Book Reading for Young Children With Hearing Loss. Communications Quarterly, 1-15. Ganea, P. A., Allen, M. A., Butler, L., Carey, S., & DeLoache, J. S. (2009). Toddlers’ referential understanding of pictures. Journal of Child Experimental Psychology, (104), 283–295. Gros-Louis, J.; West, JM & King, A.P. (2016). The Influence of Interactive Context on Prelinguistic Vocalizations and Maternal Responses. Language Learning and Development, 2016; vol.12, 280-286 Garner, P. W., Jones, D. C., Gaddy, G., & Rennie, K. M. (1997). Low-income mothers’ conversations about emotions and their children’s emotional competence. Social Development, 6, 37–52. Garvey, C. (1984). Children’s talk. Fontana Paperbacks. Maclver-Lux, K., Lim, S.R., Rhoades, E.A., Robertson, L., Quayle, R. & Honck, L (2016). Milestones in Auditory-Verbal Development: Auditory Processing, Speech, Language, Emergent Literacy, Play and Theory of Mind. In: Estabrooks, W., Maclver-Lux, K. & Rhoades, E.A. ed. Auditory Verbal Therapy for Young Children with Hearing Loss and Their Families, and the Practitioners who guide them. Plural Publishing Inc, pp. 219-263 Meltzhoff, A (2005). Imitation and Other Minds: The “Like Me” Hypothesis. IN Perspectives on Imitation: Imitation, Human Development & Culture, Hurley, S (2005). Massachusetts Institute of Technology. National Early Literacy Panel. (2008). Developing early literacy: A scientific synthesis of early literacy development and implications for interventions. [Report of the National Early Literacy Panel]. Retrieved from http://ed.gov/publications/pdf/NELPReport0 Pelletier, J. & Astington, J. W. (2004). Action, consciousness and theory of mind: Children’s ability to coordinate story characters’ actions and thoughts. Early Education and Development, 15, 5–22. Parish-Morris, J., Mahajan, N., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Michnick Golinkoff, R., & Fuller Collins, M. (2013). Once upon a time: Parent–child dialogue and storybook reading in the electronic era. International Mind, Brain, and Educational Society, 7 (13), 200-211. Peskin,J.(1996).Guise and guile: Children’s understanding of narratives in which the purpose of pretense is deception. Child Development, 67, 1735–1751. Peskin, J., & Astington, J. W. (2004). The effects of adding metacognitive language to story text. Cognitive Development, 19, 253–273. Ratner, N. K., & Olver, R. R. (1998). Reading a tale of deception, learning a theory of mind?, 13, 219–239. Early Childhood Research Quarterly. Robertson, L. (2009). Literacy and Deafness. Listening and Spoken Language. Plural Publishing. Ruffman, T., Slade, L., & Crowe, E. (2002). The relation between children’s and mothers’ mental state: Language and theory of mind understanding. Child Development,73, 734–751. Sheridan, M.D (2009). From Birth to Five Years Children’s Developmental Progress 3rd Edition. Routledge Taylor & Francis Group Slaughter, V., Peterson, C. C., & Mackintosh, E. (2007). Mind what mother says: Narrative input and theory of mind in typical children and those on the autism spectrum. Child Development, 78, 839–858. Snow, C. E., Tabors, P. O., & Dickinson, D. K. (2001). Language development in the preschool years. In D. K. Dickinson, & P. O. Tabors (Eds.), Beginning literacy with language: Young children learning at home and school (pp. 1–26). Baltimore, MD: Brookes. Trelease, J (2006) The Read-Aloud Handbook 6th Edition New York: Penguin Group (USA) . Trivette, C.M, Dunst, C.J. & Gorman, E (2010). Effects of parent-mediated joint book reading on the early language development of toddlers and preschoolers. Center for Early Literacy Learning, 3, 1-15. Van Kleek, A; Stahl, S and Bauer, E (2003). On Reading books to Children: Parents and Teachers. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Manage Cookie Preferences