This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Book Week is a great opportunity for parents and caregivers to inspire a love of reading in babies and toddlers. But sometimes very young children aren't engaged when adults read to them.
They may become distracted and restless. They can wriggle away, crumple the pages or seem more interested in putting the book in their mouth than listening to the story. This can make reading to little kids seem like a pointless exercise.
Here's how you can get the most out of storytime with babies and toddlers. Research suggests reading with children gives them a head start in developing literacy, cognitive and numeracy skills. Parents may wonder how long they need to read to children to see these benefits.
But they don't need to carve out large chunks of time from their schedules. A 2022 Australian study suggested babies who were read to for 11 or more minutes a day had stronger vocabulary skills by the time they started school than those who were read to for 10 minutes or fewer each day. For babies ages 1–2, it helps to keep storytime one-on-one and centered on the baby's interests and daily routines.
Parents can hold a baby's attention by pointing to a picture and asking a related question, such as, "What's that? That's a puppy!" Making connections between the meanings in the book and the baby's own life can help them develop a greater understanding of the world. Parents might say, "There's a puppy.
You have a puppy too!" Babies communicate their positive feelings by moving toward the book, touching it, patting the pictures, smiling, laughing and making happy sounds. If a baby becomes restless or distracted during storytime, it's fine to stop reading and move on to something else. To a baby, a book is an interesting object to explore, flip through, grab, chew or even sit on.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
