The guiding principals for building strong brains are simple: During the first Three Key Years of life, Talk. Read. Play. Count. Sing with your children.

In this post we want to specifically explore, ‘reading’ with your child(ren).

Reading helps your baby develop her/his vocabulary as soon as she/he is born. Your baby’s brain is making associations with the words you read and the pictures you describe every time you read together.

Every book works and any book is good. Make reading special with your family. The Three Key Year’s website has two e-booksthat you can share with your children.

Ask your baby questions as you read, then tell them what they are seeing. Count often with your baby. Count things in the kitchen and the crib and teach basic numbers every day through books and also just through talking about numbers.

Here are a few, no cost, resources we like:

  • Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library: Register your child to receive a free book mailed to them every month from Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. Dolly’s organization created this program in order to support families and their children to improve early childhood literacy for every child in need.
  • Find a few books your child really loves and read them over and over. This provides a sense of continuity.Amazon Prime is making some kid’s programming available for free.

If you have a choice among books:

  • Choose books with lots of pictures.
  • Find books that also have different textures to feel and describe as you read… like fuzzy, soft, prickly, squishy.
  • Books that include counting are super important to help your baby’s brain early on.
  • Anna and the Germ that Came to Visit helps children identify, understand, and cope with the normal range of feelings they may be experiencing at this time.

But at the end of the day, every book is good and every reading experience is wonderful and will be loved by children.

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