We have been discussing how adults read books, so today we will talk about the first stage of children’s reading, the “book turning period”, and how to cultivate children’s reading habits. The key is to help babies become familiar with books and develop a love for them.
When should the “book turning period” or the entire children’s reading behavior start? As soon as your baby can sit on your lap and sit still, you can start reading to them. This is usually around 6 months old. You may be thinking, “How can a 6-month-old read? They can’t understand anything.”
Indeed, children at this stage do not actually read in the true sense. They may gnaw and tear the book at first because they don’t know what the function of a book is.
However, slowly they will find that there are colorful patterns in the book, and these patterns seem to represent things in daily life. Therefore, they begin to understand that books can be read, and they can be turned page by page to reveal different patterns. This is the beginning of children’s reading.
If you read to your child for a period of time every day, they will soon realize that books are different from other things. As soon as they see a book, they know their parents will hold them on their laps and talk to them in a different voice than usual. The pictures in the book are attractive and interesting, and they may recognize familiar objects like a ball, a feeding bottle, a shoe, or a doll that they have in real life.
Therefore, children will soon discover that what is in the book also exists in the real world, which is called the concept of representation. Once they start to have this concept, they will pay attention to and observe the connection between the pictures in the book and the things in real life. At this point, their book concept has emerged, which is an important first step in reading enlightenment.
When the concept of a book begins to sprout in your child’s mind, they will no longer treat it as just another toy to gnaw on, tear apart, or bite. They will begin to realize that this is a special thing and will look forward to interacting with it. If you observe your baby getting excited about a book and offering it to you, you know that they like it and have something new to learn.
It is important to pay attention when this kind of behavior occurs because it means that the first step has been successful. Therefore, you should not be perfunctory with your child. Instead, take it seriously and start “parent-child reading” with them. Talk to them, let them play, touch, look through, press, and look, and show them the pictures in the book and things in life, just like playing a game. At this point, reading has already begun.
To sum up, during the “book flipping period,” we have two goals: to help babies develop the concept of “books” and to cultivate their interest in books. In other words, we want the baby to get to know the book and fall in love with it.