Reading to Encourage Speech Development
- Juay Perez
- Oct 4, 2019
- 3 min read
Updated: Oct 19, 2019
There are a lot of tried-and-tested books out there that is sure to be a hit to both mothers and their children. Books by Eric Carle and Dr. Seuss are library staples, but these books can be costly. You see, aside from enjoying the book content, my toddler also enjoys either pulling the pages apart or finding out what those pages taste like, and my poor heart cannot stand watching him tear apart an expensive book. I would then tend to overprotect the book and it interferes with my toddler and me's enjoyment of our "reading" activity.
So, I try to look for the next best option: second hand children's books that cost only a fraction of a new book price. If you are lucky, you can even score one of the well-loved classics for cheap. Of course, not all books targeted to young readers are necessarily well-written or well-designed.
So, when you look for the book, make sure that you look out for the following:
1. Books with bright, realistic pictures
This is one of my son's favorite books when he was around a year and a half. He enjoys identifying all the familiar animals while making their sounds. He makes a pretty good elephant sound. :) This book was a gift we received as a baptismal present.
2. Stories with simple, repetitive plot
I don't really like the illustrations of some Dr. Seuss stories because they don't look exactly like its real life counterpart (see cat below). He has a lot of stories that deal with made up monsters or characters and I feel that younger kids who are just learning to speak will find it difficult to remember these words when they have nothing to associate it with in real life. These stories are perfect for young kids with a well-developed vocabulary, but it's not the best for toddlers who are still figuring out the language.
However, Dr. Seuss is a genius with his fun story plots. My son loved "Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumbs" in this collection. It is repetitive, there is a nice rhythm to it, and it is an overall enjoyable read for a young toddler.
I mentioned how costly Dr. Seuss books are but this was given to me by a friend who is also an English teacher. It's great to have a group of peers who love reading. ^_^
3. Texts are large and age-appropriate
This was given to us by an aunt. As you can see, the texts are large and inside, each page only has around one or two sentences. The vocabulary used is simple.
4. Board books
The Dr. Seuss and Piranha books aren't board books so I sometimes end up wrestling with my son over the book when the mood to suddenly start tearing pages strikes him.
So it's always safe to have board books as first books so you don't have to worry about it getting destroyed the first few months (or if you want the next baby to use it). This one, which is a second-hand book, survived plenty of abuse. You will notice that the corner has been chewed off; all my son's doing.
When you read to your kid, here are a few tips:
1. Pronounce the words clearly. You might have to speak slightly slower than the way you normally talk so that your child can hear the correct way to pronounce words.
2. You do not have to necessarily "read" the text. I'm trying to raise my child to be proficient in Filipino, and I use the same English book to develop the language. I just speak in Filipino while telling the same story to my kid. If you are a bilingual or multilingual mom (that includes other Philippine languages such as Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Ilokano, etc.), use those languages during storytelling time.
(Note: I know there is some reluctance to using too many languages while the child is young over fears that this might cause speech delays but science seems to suggest otherwise. In this study, it even claims that bilingualism presents cognitive advantages for the child. It's while they are young where they learn easily so be sure to expose your child to the languages you are proficient in.)
3. Sometimes, simply talking about pictures and what's going on in the picture can be considered storytelling time. That's why my son and I would sometimes have nights where storytelling involves opening a National Geographic magazine.
4. If your child has a favorite story, you can even have him retell the story to you...even if he does so twenty million times.
Happy reading, mommies!
Σχόλια