Posted Monday July 13th 2009 by Natasha Worswick
If you are particularly eagle-eyed or especially news-hungry, you may have spotted this story last week about some research on ways of improving little ones’ language skills.
The point, says Dr Frederick Zimmerman from the UCLA School of Public Health in California, is that encouraging your child to speak is the best way to promote their language development.
For us at Booktrust, it’s not, as some news headlines suggests, about choosing a bedtime chat over a bedtime read. We believe that the best way to enjoy a book at a very young age is to approach it as a conversation.
A book is something you can actively share and enjoy together. You could recite the words together, talk about what you see or how the story makes you feel, for example. And I won’t bore you with it here, but there’s research to back it up, too.
Dr Zimmerman calls the advice to read to your child “sound”, but wants to place “more emphasis on the importance of getting children to speak”. As books can make use of little ones’ emotions, imaginations and their relationship with you, they are the ideal way to do just that.
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Solihull
Jul 30th, 2009 at 11:38:08 hrs
As a librarian, I had to re-learn book sharing with my own kids. Often I just used to read the book to them as if having a 1-2-1 storytime. Now I get them joining in with repeated phrases 'Timothy Pope, Timothy Pope' and saying the punch lines to choruses as well as doing actions. And now I do the same at the library!