How Reading Promotes Children’s Language Skills and a Love for Books

Reading is a great way to expose your child to language, engage in joint attention and build a love of books! Make sure to read with enthusiasm and lots of emotion.

Children learn through repetition. Once you have read a book to your child a few times, try pausing before you finish a sentence and see if your child will fill in the next word. If not, keep reading. Next time they will! Now they are reading with you!!

Another fun way to build language skills is to get small objects that coordinate with a book so they can match, hold and play with actual items from the book, for example, a plastic caterpillar, leaf, and food for The Very Hungry Caterpillar. This is great for taking vocabulary out of the book and into their world!