The Open Book

We all know the importance of reading with kids, and we try to enforce it, but sometimes, getting them engaged is just so hard! Maybe if we put our minds together, we can help each other with the tips and tricks that have worked for us over the years and turn our challenge into an easy fix. 

Obviously, toddlers aren’t reading words yet, but that doesn’t mean you can’t engage them in reading. Talking about the pictures and asking them questions about what they can see goes a long way. Reading to and with all ages helps their cognitive development. Pick and choose some of these strategies to try! Share some of your own in the comments! I’m always looking for new tricks.

Talking about what you see and read

5Ws and How: Ask them who, what, where, when, why, and how questions

• Who is that?
• What are they doing?
• Where are they hiding?
• When will mommy come home?
• Why is baby sad?
• How is he going to climb the tree?

Themes and patterns: Ask them to point out themes or patterns they see. 

• Can you see something green/shiny/big/small/happy/…?
• Which things are clean/dirty/high/low/tall/short/…?
• Where are all the big/small rocks?

Link it to real life: Ask them questions that link it with their life.

• That girl is painting, do you like to paint? When was the last time you painted a picture?
• He doesn’t like his vegetables, is there a vegetable you don’t like?

Practicing with words

Pretend to get words wrong: Once kids are starting to read, you can ask them to follow along as you read and make mistakes with your reading.

• Text says: the first little pig ran to the second little pig’s house. You read: the first pig swam to the second little pig’s house. When your child says “NO” you point to the word “ran” and say, it says “swam”! your child will want to correct you and you can practice sounding out the word together to correct it.
• This even works in a context way as well. When the kids aren’t old enough to read the words yet, but they understand the pictures, you can change some of the words that are obvious in the picture and see if they catch on and want to correct you. For example: the picture has a hot air balloon flying on a clear day. you could read the text as the balloon was flying on a stormy day.

Sticky notes!: Using those see-through sticky notes, ask your child to find the words they are practicing and cover them with the sticky notes to highlight them.

• Find the word said/and/what/blue/etc.

You can use this method with older kids when they start learning grammar.

• Find the nouns/verbs/pronouns/adjectives/etc.

Another version would be to use sticky notes to cover words in a story and have your child guess the missing word. Or have a list of possible words cut out and in front of them for them to place on top of the blank space.

Recalling and Story Order

Snap the book shut!: When you finish reading a sentence or a page, snap the book shut so it makes a bang and quickly ask your child a question.

• SNAP! Who ate the hot porridge?
• What color was her dress?
• Where will she go now?

Timeline: When you finish reading a story (or a chapter with older kids) work together with them to plot out a timeline of what they read. Either a straight line on a page, or the story mountain arc work.

• Who did we meet?
• What were they doing?
• When did they meet the dragon?
• What happened after the fight?
• What were the problems and what order were they in?

Have fun with it and let your child guide you into their world.