Books are real jems when it comes to language building. My first son couldn’t get enough reading time. We would find him crawling off to his room to pull the books off his bookshelf multiple times a day. My youngest son, NOT interested!!!
To his credit, he has Optic Nerve Hypoplasia which affects his vision (we don’t know how much) so books and pictures may just be difficult. Like the proud early intervention mama that I am, I thought I could solve the issue by stocking up on high contrast books and textured….nope! He still just didn’t care for books.
The thing I had to remember and the thing I will stress to you is that children all learn differently AND don’t give up on books if at first they are crawling out the door everytime you try to read them a nice little story.
Some tips:
- Let them explore: chew, lick, smash, and throw those board books!!!
- Read to them even if they are roaming around the room
- You dont have to read all the words on the page (you don’t have to read ANY of the words on the page). I have only made animal noises for each page of a book more than once because it makes my little man smile
- You can read 2 pages and say “the end” if your little one is just very unhappy with the activity.
- If they want to read the book backwards or skip a page or read the same page 10 times, go with it. If you want to read it “your way first” and then relinquish the reigns, that works too
- Keep it simple, keep it fun
Building Better Speech and Language 