5 Reading Tips for Infants

It’s never too early to read to your little one. As soon as your child is born, he or she starts learning. Just by talking to, playing with, and caring for your child every day, you help your tiny tot develop language skills necessary to become a reader. By reading with your little one, you foster a love of books and reading right from the start. At CMRNPS, we have compiled five reading tips that offer some fun ways you can help your little one become a happy and confident reader.

Start young and stay with it

• Snuggle up with a book: When you hold your child close and look at a book together, your little one will enjoy the snuggling and hearing your voice as well as the story. Feeling safe and secure with you while looking at a book builds your child’s confidence and love of reading.

• Choose child-friendly books: Books with bright and bold or high-contrast illustrations are easier for young children to see, and will grab their attention. Books made of cloth or soft plastic (for the bathtub) or “board books” with sturdy cardboard pages are easier for them to handle.

• Keep books where your little one can reach them: Make sure books are as easy to reach, hold, and look at as toys. Remember, a young child will do with a book what he/she does with everything else — put it in his/her mouth. And that’s exactly what they are supposed to do, so you may only want to put chewable books within reach.

• Develop a daily routine: Routines can soothe a child and let them learn to predict what will happen next. The ability to predict is important when your child is older and is reading independently.

• Sing, Read, Repeat: Read favourite stories and sing favourite songs over and over again. Repeated fun with books will strengthen language development and positive feelings about reading.

Parents, we recommend you to try a new reading tip each week and see what works best for your child.