WDSD Quick Win 4: World Book Day - Keep Reading!

On world book day I just wanted to check in with how we are progressing on our ‘That’s Not My....’ books. I posted previously about starting to read these with your baby early on and I thought it would be a good time to update you as to how Frida and I are getting on. I had to have a little break for a couple of weeks, but we are back at them now. I tend to pick one for two for a week and rotate them.

We read one most nights and she will also peruse one from her potty. She definitely recognises and enjoys them.

She now turns most of the pages herself, seeks out the sensory spot and we spend time looking at what is on the page. I’m trying to get her familiar with words like ‘find’, ‘look’ and ‘where’ and these books are great for that. I’ve started asking her to look for the mouse on each page and signing that to her as it’s a fun sign. She isn’t yet pointing to it but I’m staying strong and doing it for every page as I’m pretty sure it’ll come eventually.

She seems to have now grasped the idea of reading and that turning the pages and interacting with the story makes me happy. I was reading to her whilst she was sitting on Glenn’s lap the other day and she was very proudly showing off to him that she could touch and turn the pages and every time she did, looked to me for approval with a huge grin on her face. Magical and hilarious and a sign of really good things to come as I see that as her taking pride in achievement.

A book we now read quite a lot in the daytime is ‘Brown Bear, Brown Bear’ by Eric Carle and Bill Martin Jr. It is so good for Makaton signing. In fact, our 4 year old can now sign the entire book to Frida just by reference to the pictures - so it is helping her develop her signing and reading skills too. Double quick win! Here is a link to the brilliant Suzanne from Singing Hands signing it. It is so rhythmic and fun to read and sign - I highly recommend learning some of the colour and animal signs and you’ve got those brilliant ‘carrier phrases’ repeating again. We love it.

Otherwise, I’m generally sticking to simple board and textured books and books I can sign as well (Monkey Puzzle is quite fun!). Every so often I add in something a bit different and longer to help work on increasing her attention span and to introduce a proper story so she can start to get hooked on books like Ada is (who is currently rattling through Roald Dahl’s catalogue!). The longer she can concentrate on something, the more chance she has of learning from it.

So keep reading and exploring books with your baby. It is the foundation for developing attention, reading, story telling and creativity - it’s also just a really lovely thing to do together as it often involves being snuggled up together.

Happy World Book Day!