Reading is such a awesome activity for you to share with your child, however not all children like to sit and hear a story as they would rather run around. Reading is a huge part of life, even in this ever changing world where books are becoming less common and screens becoming apart of our daily lives.

Don’t let your children miss the opportunity to have books around them as they provide so much excitement, fun and education. They are such a wonderful visual activity for your children, especially children’s books that are filled with loads of amazing pictures.

3 Ways to Encourage ‘Reading’

With Your Toddler

 

1. Provide Easy Access To A Range Of Books

Having easy access to a range of books allows your toddler/child to access and read them whenever they want. This can create loads of mess as they are easy for them to be pulled out onto the floor all the time, but allows great opportunity for kids to get their hands onto the books. In this section of our house I have chosen the thicker/harder covered books to be left out. This way it is less likely they will get damaged as they are tougher type books. It is also important that you swap them around every so often or add new books to explore.

 

     

 

2. Have A Large Selection Of Books To Choose From

We all know children LOVE doing things over and over, and this is a great thing as it helps them learn a new skill and master it. You may get bored of a particular book but your toddler/child could have you read the same book 500 times over and over. Same goes for DVDs, movies etc. Having a large variety of books will help keep yourself and your child interested in them. Different shaped booked, some that have pop outs, some that have more pictures, some with more words, small books, large books, thin books, fat books, ‘can you find’ books, flap books, word books , colours books, shapes books. The more variety the better. The variety helps with getting used to a range of shapes, lengths, difficulties, etc keeping yourself and your child interested. This section of our books is up higher so Miss A can’t reach them but can see them and ask for them to be read to her. They are often books that could be easily damaged or more special books.

 

3. Set Up A Reading Chair

Having a chair available away from distraction is also a great way to read with your children. We love our POÄNG chair from IKEA. When Miss A was a baby this was a chair that I was able to sit in and feed her or rock her back to sleep of a night. As she has gotten bigger it has become a chair we can sit together in and read books, or a chair she can climb up onto with her books and flick through and ‘read’ them to herself.

What books are in your child’s collection?

Do you have books easily available to them? 

 

By Clare at Relaxed Parenting