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The importance of reading to your child is immeasurable. Not only does it allow for quality time with your child, but it also promotes creative thinking skills and imagination. Reading to your child also:

• helps your child grow and develop mentally
• introduces your child to new words
• encourages reading as a fun activity and an alternative to television
• teaches children to respect books

What and how to read to your child

Make the reading experience interactive. Start with small, interactive books. Adapt your voice by using high pitch tones, and picking up or slowing down the tempo to keep the child interested. The rhythm of nursery rhymes appeals to toddlers and stimulates responses in babies. Read books with a repeating refrain, rhyming words, and pictures that go with the words, and soon your child will be reading them without help. As your child grows, progress to books where your child can anticipate what will happen and understand why it happens. Concept books, such as ABC and counting books, are also recommended during the toddler period. Also, be a reading role model for your children. They will be more interested in books if they see you reading.

Fun reading activities:

As you read to your child, ask open-ended questions about the story, like "do you know what is going to happen next?" and "what would you do if you were Peter Rabbit in this situation?" This will keep your child interested, as well as help develop your child’s skills in thinking through situations.

Below is a list of more things you can do while reading to your child to promote language development.

• Let your child guess the next word.
• Let your child retell the story in his own words.
• Discuss connections between the story and your child’s life.
• Move your finger under the words while you read. Your child will begin to connect printed words to spoken words.

Make your own book

Create a book with your child! This fun activity can help your child appreciate books and take a more active role in story-telling, as well as allow you to spend time together. To create a book with your child, cut square pieces of cardboard or poster-board and glue colorful pictures onto the pages. For example, there can be a family page, an animal page, or a toy page. Under the picture, you can write the name of the object or a sentence about the picture. You can also glue on materials with interesting textures, such as sandpaper or fabric, to encourage touching and learning through another sense. The books can be bound together by using a three-hole punch and yarn or ribbon.

Read Me A Story is a reading checkup guide from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). The reading checkup guide provides a checkup questionnaire for particular age groups, a "How parents can help" section, and recommendations for appropriate books.