The Ultimate Guide to Shared Book Reading for 9-36 months olds

Jul 31, 2020
3 min read

Updated: Oct 9, 2020

*The title refers to children with a developmental level of 9-36 months olds*

Parents are no speech pathologists nor magicians, so do not expect to excel in a reading activity with your child. Remember, there is never a harsh line of success. It all comes to active participation.

Back to our topic! The following are some handy tips to elevate your next book reading session:

For Infants (9-18 months)

Goal: to establish shared attention on an item/activity, preferably a picture book without words.

According to Girolametto and Weitzman (2002), here are some points to keep in mind:

sit facing each other
ask questions based on the child's interest, e.g if the child is pointing/looking at a dog, we can ask 'Dog! What is he eating?'
follow the child's lead and interest by observing their responses and react accordingly

Shared book reading sessions which follow child's interest are most effective in enhancing their expressive and receptive language.

------Trivette, Dunst, and Gorman (2010) and Waski and Feldman (2013)

Then you will want to follow a ladder:

Step 1: establish shared attention with your child on a picture book.

Step 2: Wait for any responses upon flipping a page. If the child points/stares at something, we can respond by pointing and naming it.

Step 3: The child may name the thing.

Ultimately, the child can hopefully name multiple items in the story during rereading.

* If your child does not progress, that is completely fine! Everything takes time. Meanwhile, just stick to our goal: establishing joint attention.

For Toddlers (18-36 months)

Goal: to establish early literacy skills: the skills needed to prepare later reading and writing ability.

Here are some strategies from Bernadowski (2008), Machado (2010), Rosenquest (2002), and Scheffell and Ingrisano (2000):

1. Picture books with several words are encouraged but not real stories as they are too advanced.

2. Point and label with 1 or 2 words during the reading.

3. To grasp more interests, get a phone or picture cards to display what is mentioned in the book. E.g a real octopus photo on the phone when reading about an octopus. The simpler the pictures look, the better.

4. To encourage communication, feel free and ask topics outside the context e.g How was the octopus he saw in the aquarium look like?

5. Using intonations and stresses to emphasize things you want your child to learn, e.g a new vocabulary.

6. While rereading, scaffold by pausing after saying a word or two on a page, observe and have your child talk. Do not force it they cannot do it.

These above instructions may seem similar to our first part (age 9-18), but we are now encouraging slightly advanced speech, like 2 words phrases.

Final tips for both age groups:

Re-reading stories are excellent for reinforcement but make sure your child is still into the same story.
Have fun and feel free to react exaggeratedly or even better, give voiceovers to children, trust me as I do it all the time and all kids love that! If you are lucky enough, they may even respond to you back with their voice over!
Always make sure you are choosing a book the child is interested in.
Reading can be done anytime anywhere.
For bilinguals, read with the language your child is most comfortable with.
If you or the child do not enjoy reading, there is still plenty of options, check out our other blogs for more ideas. The most important thing is both of you enjoying the activity. That is what makes them powerful.
Link the story to an activity or their daily life. E.g a role-playing game about being the octopus in the book or ask your child about the story when spotting an octopus in the aquarium.

That is all for our essential tips on shared book reading for 9-36 months old. There will be the Ultimate Guide for Shared Book Reading for Schoolers (3 years old and above) coming soon! stay tuned.

Hope you all enjoyed it and have found this blog useful.

Have a great day and don't forget to smile. Happy reading!