2-3 years: reading together
Your child should start having an interest in reading at this stage, but you need to continue enhancing your child's vocabulary and develop his/her communication skills.
They need to handle books, enjoy the pictures and hear lots of stories and rhymes. This will give children the best foundation for learning to read and love books.
- Read to your child as often as possible - any time, any place, anywhere - in bed, the car, in the bath. Do it daily and, if possible, around the same time every day. Also try to keep a special time for reading, when you can cuddle up together - reading children's books before bedtime often works well.
- Make reading fun by entertaining your child with funny and silly voices.
- If you have several small children, you can read to them together. Picture books work well for this.
- Put books around the house in baskets and boxes - like a lucky dip that your child can choose from.
- Talk about the pictures in the story and guess what happens next. Ask your child to point at an object or point your finger at an object and ask your child to name it.
- Move your finger underneath the words as you read, so your child can see and hear words at the same time.
- Learn rhymes and songs together so you both know them by heart and can point to the words and recite them together.
- Expand your child's vocabulary by singing nursery rhymes and discuss groups of words with similar patterns like mat, cat, bat, rat.
- Encourage your child to bring books home from nursery school.
- Make sure your child sees you reading newspapers, books and magazines.