By Nancy Olsen-Harbich, MA
You know that good reading skills can help your child throughout life, and that you can help develop a love for reading by reading aloud with your child. But how do you select the best books?
Good books for preschoolers should be enjoyable, but they should also stimulate curiosity and imagination, promote language development and intellectual growth, and motivate your child to learn to read. That’s a tall order for what should be a short book, short enough to be read in one sitting and within the limited attention span of a young child. Preschoolers are generally focused on themselves, the people they are living with, and their immediate surroundings. Stories young children find most appealing and easy to relate to usually involve children their own age with familiar objects and animals. That doesn’t mean you can’t use books to introduce children to new ideas or cultures or take them on flights of fantasy. Just take it slowly, and don’t introduce too many new concepts all at once.
Quality Counts
Visit the library early on in your child’s life. Make frequent visits and let your child feel the freedom of selecting books. Ask the children’s librarian, teachers, and other parents to recommend books. Look for Caldecott Award winning books, usually identified on the front cover. When you actually pick up and open a book, consider the following:
- Sentences should be short and simple so children can easily follow the story.
- Rhyme appeals to young children, even very silly rhymes. Listening to rhyme helps develop phonemic awareness, a key skill for learning to read.
- Good books for young children should have appealing and clear illustrations.
- Each page should have only a few sentences, and the words and pictures should work together to tell the story. Young children often “read” by looking at the pictures, so if the words you are reading align with the pictures your child is seeing, the book will have a greater impact.
- Books about familiar television or cartoon characters do little to stimulate your child’s own creativity and imagination.
- Pay attention to your child’s reactions as you read to see what types of stories and characters engage him or her.
- Choose books you enjoy reading, so that your enthusiasm and joy of reading shines through.
Get Lists of ‘Hot Picks’ Recommended by Educators
Ask the children’s librarian and teachers if they have compiled a list of recommended books for children, or can refer you to such lists. A “List of 1000 Books to Read before Kindergarten” is available at most local libraries.
Nancy Olsen-Harbich is Program Director and a Human Development Specialist with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County’s Family Health and Wellness Program. She can be reached at 631-727-7850 ext. 332 or at no18@cornell.edu.