I have talked about the importance of reading on a previous post, The benefits of taking children to the library.
It is never too early to start reading to your little one. We started when E was a few weeks old. She would lie down/sit propped up on my knee, stare at the pictures and listen to the noises. I believe early reading is one of the best kids’ activities to prepare children for starting school and to gift them with a lifelong love of reading.
Books can be found in most rooms of our house and E has access to all of her books so she can look at them when ever she wants. I also let her personally choose a couple of story books for bedtime, E is however at that stage when she has her favourite books that she requests — or rather demands — repeat readings of these books.
These are the books that are popular with E at the moment, We’re going on a bear hunt has been a favourite for a long time as has Monkey Puzzle.
The top ten books that E loves and that I can recommend to read to toddlers are:-
!) The Very Hungry Caterpillar – The hungry caterpillar that eats everything and then turns into a beautiful butterfly. I love the colours and the story and E loves it so she can put her fingers through the holes! A classic book.
2) We’re Going on a Bear Hunt – This great book about a family hunting for a bear has inspired E to want to pretend to go on bear hunts.
3) Stick Man – about an engaging stick characters adventure
4) The Gruffalo – The classic story book about a little brown mouse in the deep dark woods.
5) The Gruffalo’s child – The Gruffalo’s child goes looking for the fierce brown mouse
6) Monkey Puzzle – A very clever and engaging story about motherly love.
7) Peppa Pig – The fire engine. E loves Peppa Pig, the books are a brief story relating to one of the episodes.
8) Maisy goes camping, all of the Maisy books are great and E loves them all. We frequently get some out from the library. This particular one is about Maisy and her friends going camping.
9) Rabbits Nap – A Lift the flap book about a little rabbit that can’t find anywhere quiet enough to sleep.
10) That’s not my Fairy – E has quite a lot of the Usbourne touchy feely books from when she was younger, however she still likes to look at them and will read them out loud herself as she knows how the book goes. A great sensory book.
As you can see Julia Donaldson is a firm favourite in this house, her books all have great stories some of which have a great repetition of rhyming text. I look forward to reading many new books with E in the future.
As you can see the majority of the books here are board books, these are very robust for little hands, our bookcase is slowly changing over to a lot more paperback books which luckily E is very careful with.
Does your child have any favourite books that they like to read or have you read to them?
