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SUMMARY: A common dilemma for parents of toddlers is that, though they would love to read-aloud to their young children, it’s difficult to get a super active, bursting-with-energy toddler to sit still long enough to get through even one book, let alone several. Having done a lot of research on reading aloud to small children and testing different methods out on my own toddlers, I’ve come up with 6 Simple Strategies to get my little guys to sit still and read with me.
In this episode, I’m going to pass these tricks along to you in the hopes that they help make reading aloud with your active toddler a fun and positive experience for both of you.
Listen to the Podcast Episode:
Books Mentioned in this Episode:
The Little Fur Family by Margaret Wise Brown
Goodnight Owl by Greg Pizzoli
Bedtime for Frances by Russel Hoban, illustrated by Garth Williams
Olivia by Ian Falconer
Olivia the Spy by Ian Falconer
Olivia Goes to Venice by Ian Falconer
Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle, illustrated by Jill McElmurry
Little Blue Truck’s Leads the Way by Alice Schertle, illustrated by Jill McElmurry
Little Blue Truck’s Christmas by Alice Schertle, illustrated by Jill McElmurry
Little Blue Truck’s Halloween by Alice Schertle, illustrated by Jill McElmurry
What A Wonderful World by Bob Thiele and George David Weiss, illustrated by Tim Hopgood
Thank You, Omu! by Oge Mora
Octopus Alone by Divya Srinivasin
Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See? by Bill Martin, Jr., illustrated by Eric Carle
Where’s Spot? by Eric Hill
Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
Little Blue Truck’s Springtime by Alice Schertle, illustrated by Jill McElmurry
Are You A Cow? by Sandra Boynton
Press Here by Hervé Tullet
Each Peach Pear Plum by Allen and Janet Ahlberg
Mother Goose Treasury illustrated by Priscilla Lamont
Nursery Rhyme Treasury foreword by Chris Riddell, illustrated by Dorothy M. Wheeler
Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler
The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler
A Gold Star for Zog by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler
Peppa’s First Colors by Scholastic and Eone
Thomas & Friends – It’s Great to Be an Engine Little Music Note Sound Book by Editors of Phoenix International Publications
It’s You I Like! Flip and Find (Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood) by Cottage Door Press and Scarlett Wing
The Little Box of Life’s Big Lessons (Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood)
Spring Cleaning: Featuring Jim Henson’s Sesame Street Muppets by Pat Tornborg, illustrated by Nancy W. Stevenson
The Monster at the End of This Book by Jon Stone, illustrated by Michael Smollin
Preschool Clues: Raising Smart, Inspired, and Engaged Kids in a Screen-Filled World by Angela C. Santomero and Deborah Reber, Ph.D.
Thirty Million Words: Building a Child’s Brain: Tune In, Talk More, Take Turns by Dana Suskind, M.D.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Journey by Aaron Becker
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Toys and Activities Mentioned in this Episode:
2. Montessori Knobbed Cylinders and Sockets
3. HABA Wooden Make-Your-Own Garden
4. Apple and Cheese Threading Toy
5. Petit Collage Stacking/Nesting Blocks
6. Mudpuppy Puzzle Zoo Animals
8. Janod Chunky Puzzle Forest Animals
8. Janod Chunky Puzzle Zoo Animals
Podcast Transcript:
Hello everybody! I just wanted to start off by saying that even though I’m recording some episodes that don’t seem to directly relate to what’s going on in the world right now in so far as I’m not explicitly talking about race, diversity, inclusion, etc. in every episode, I just want to make clear that, first of all, this podcast fully and unabashedly supports the Black Lives Matter movement and the fight for justice and equity for Black people—and, for that matter, also the fight for justice and equity for Indigenous people, other people of color, gay people, trans people, ALL people. This is not a political issue; it’s a humanitarian one. Second, and related to this point, I started this podcast to help parents and caregivers use children’s literature to raise kind, intelligent, and successful kids. You cannot do that if you do not believe that Black Lives Matter—especially when it comes to kindness and empathy. Children may turn out to be intelligent and achieve some level of success, but if we don’t also raise them to believe in and fight for justice, equity, acceptance, respect, and fairness for everyone, we will rob them of their potential to be not only kind humans, but also to be world-changing forces for good. Children become who we shape them to be, so we must try and try and keep trying to raise good, responsible humans. So even if this episode or future episodes don’t explicitly say it, that is the underlying current that runs through all of my work. And I promise to continue to choose excellent, brain-and-empathy-building books and to amplify diverse voices whenever I can through the characters, authors, and illustrators that I discuss in order to support this podcast’s ultimate mission.
Okay, so now that I’ve made all of that clear, let’s get into Episode 7:
Today we’re going to talk about 6 strategies to help you read to your active toddlers. I’m recording this episode as a response to a number of people telling me that they want to read to their toddlers, but that it is really, really hard to get them to sit still long enough to get through even one book, let alone several. I’ve actually had a lot of people asking me recently how to do this during quarantine. I think because, like adults, little kids get cabin fever, too, and so they’re even more antsy than usual andplus it’s just really hard for parents right now to devote the time and mental stamina to getting a cooped-up, bursting-with-energy toddler to sit still and read with them.
I really relate to this dilemma because when my oldest son James was a year and a half old, reading aloud to him was getting to be really fun because he was starting to memorize certain books and giggle and gasp in all the right places. So we would sit down, I was like, YES! This is amazing. He is just soaking up language and his vocabulary is getting so expansive, and I have all of these intellectually and emotionally edifying but also cute picture books just waiting to be enjoyed and appreciated, and he’s so smushy and snuggly and adorable and he’s loved books since day one…etc. etc. etc. And then, one day, I tried to sit down with him, all loving and well-intentioned, with one of his favorite books in hand, thinking that this was going to be so cozy and educational and also a wonderful experience for both if us. But, of course, my dreams were crushed because I was a first-time parent and I didn’t realize that he’d also reached the stage where he just had to be moving All. The. Time. So I would say, “James, do you want to read a story with me?” And he would happily sit down for the first two pages, but then almost like clockwork, after those first two pages, he would start squirming and ask to get down. And as he struggled to get out of my lap, I would be like, “Jamesy, hold on a minute, let’s finish this story and then you can get down.” At which point he would try to use my legs or arms or face as leverage to propel himself off my lap.
So after first fearing that I’d somehow turned him off of books and that he was going to be doomed to a life without the unique and irreplaceable joy of literature (because, as you might have picked up on if you’ve been listening from Episode 1, my Greek-woman drama runs deep), I realized that I was being ridiculous and that I had to start getting creative with my read-aloud strategy until this phase passed. It wasn’t that James didn’t like reading anymore, but he was just a super active 21-month-old who sometimes decided that making a tray of pretend cupcakes for the 47th time in a row was what life was all about. And I’m now entering this same phase with my second child, Luke, who is almost 17 months old and who loves books, but who also, from the moment he wakes up until the moment he goes to sleep, just needs to be on the go. So, having done a lot of research on reading aloud to small children and testing different methods out on my own toddlers, I’ve come up with 6 simple strategies to get my little guys to sit still and read with me. And today I’m going to pass these tricks along to you in the hopes that they help make reading aloud with your active toddlers a fun and positive experience for both of you.
STRATEGY #1: HIGH CHAIR READING
Okay, first up, Strategy #1: High Chair Reading
When James was in the stage of wanting to move around ALL THE TIME and I couldn’t get him to sit still even at bedtime, I started bringing a stack of books with me into the kitchen or dining room and reading to him before or after he ate. Sometimes—especially at breakfast or lunch if it was just the two of us—we’d even read during the meal, although this is an excellent way to ruin a book, so stick to wipeable board books for this one. The benefits of this method of read aloud are:
First and most obviously, my toddler was trapped and couldn’t go anywhere (he was quite literally a captive audience) so I didn’t have to struggle to keep him from diving off my lap with one arm while trying to turn pages with the other.
Second, let’s be honest, baby and toddler mealtimes can sometimes be like marathon events time-wise, so starting and ending with a book really broke up the monotony for James and for me.
Third, it also reminded James each day of how much he enjoyed being read to, so paradoxically I found that on the days that I read to him in his highchair he was more likely to be interested in sitting down and reading with me at other times of the day—at least for a few minutes.
Fourth, I found that highchair reading was actually the best time for me to introduce new books to my toddler. Toddlers are a funny breed of person and sometimes they only want to read their favorite books, so if you try to introduce something new while you’re holding them on a rocking chair or the sofa or something, it’s likely that you might only get to the second or even just the first page before they try to dive off your lap. Whereas, when they can’t go anywhere, you can hold their attention longer and they might develop a new favorite during that time. For example, this is what happened for James with Margaret Wise Brown’s The Little Fur Family. When I first read this book to him as a toddler sitting on the rocker that we have in the nursery, he wouldn’t get past the part where the little fur child went out into his little fur world, which is like Page 3 or something. However, when I brought that book down to the kitchen with us at breakfast and read it to him while he shoveled in blueberries, he loved it AND he started requesting it at other times because he knew the story trajectory and so didn’t get bored when the pictures didn’t grab his attention. I’ve started doing highchair reading with Luke recently and that’s how he really got into Greg Pizzoli’s book Goodnight Owl, which is now one of his absolute favorites—so much so that I bought the board book version in addition to our hardcover because Luke likes to carry this book around with him and our hardcover was starting to get battered around the edges.
STRATEGY #2: READING STRATEGICALLY AT BEDTIME
Okay, on to Strategy #2: Reading Strategically at Bedtime
Obviously, bedtime reading itself is nothing new. I’m not reinventing the wheel here—we all know the power of a great bedtime story. However, even though this is supposedly a calmer part of the day, I personally found that even when my toddlers were tired, unless they were occupied by drinking a bottle of milk or something, I would still struggle to make it through more than one book at bedtime without them trying to wriggle out of my lap. So there were three strategies that I found helpful to employ during bedtime reading that kept their attention.
#1) If your child is drinking a bottle before bed, this is the time to introduce any new books you might have. Like highchair reading, this is a time when your child is a captive audience so capitalize on that 4-6 minutes and read something new. I found that if I tried to introduce a new book before or after my toddler had his bottle, there was no way he was going to sit through the whole thing.
Which brings me to bedtime reading strategy
#2) Before or after your child drinks his bottle, or if your child does not drink a bottle at all, bedtime reading (with a few exceptions that I’ll get to in a moment) is the time to stick to books you’ve read before and that your child loves. So for example, if your child loves Bedtime for Frances by Russel Hoban and Garth Williams stick to Bedtime for Frances. It may seem counterintuitive to choose a book that your toddler has already read a million times and that novelty would attract your child more at this moment, but usually that isn’t the case until your toddler is a bit older (like, closer to 2 ½ years old). Younger toddlers are much more likely to pay attention to books with which they’re familiar, especially books that have characters they love. Babies and toddlers love predictability and repetition, so they really like to see their favorite characters and hear the same words over and over and over again. They’re comforted by books they’ve read before because they actually feel like they have some knowledge and agency if they know what’s coming next and can even chime in when they know some of the words. This helps them to build confidence, fluency, and a better understanding of rhythm and language. So obviously, you want your children to feel safe and secure and comforted before they have to separate from you to go to sleep and reading their favorite books before bed is a really great way to facilitate that.
However, here are the exceptions that I alluded to:
First, if your child loves, say, Olivia the Pig, this could be a good time to introduce a new Olivia book to him, like Olivia the Spyor Olivia Goes to Venice. Because it’s a character your child already knows and loves, you will likely be able to hold his attention because he’ll see the illustrations of Olivia and her family and he’ll probably still want to spend time with them even if the story is entirely new. Or Little Blue Truck is a good example of this. There are quite a few Little Blue Truck books and my toddlers were always very excited to see Little Blue and his farmyard friends, even if it was a companion book that they hadn’t seen before.
And I just want to note: books featuring characters from your child’s favorite shows are also great options here. A lot of the time parents feel guilty about letting their child read books with television characters in them because, let’s face it, with maybe a very few exceptions they aren’t great or even good works of literature. But I’m here to tell you that what matters most for the future success of your child is that she develops a love for reading, so don’t worry if the books toward which your toddler currently gravitates aren’t terrific. Your child will develop better taste later as you read aloud more literary books and she develops more of an attention span and capacity for stillness (it WILL happen, I promise!). For now, you just want her to associate books with comfort and pleasure. For example, at around 20 months old James really loved this Peppa Pig book about colors that we were given and this sing-a-long Thomas the Tank Engine book that he received for his birthday. Was I blown away by the narrative style of these books? No. Were the Thomas songs so beautiful that when they inevitably got lodged in my brain for days on end I was thrilled about it? Hardly. But was my child still acquiring language and having a positive reading experience? YES. It’s of course important to keep introducing books with a bit more substance to your toddler so that she doesn’t exclusively read television show adaptations, but if your child is for some reason obsessed with all things Sesame Street, by all means let her read Sesame Street books. And, another bonus to having some of these books around: if you monitor your child’s screen time like we try to do (under non-quarantine circumstances), this is a good way to allow your toddler get her Daniel Tiger fix without switching on the television or iPad. Although I would count the Daniel Tiger books as much better than most television-to-book adaptations, along with the old Sesame Street books like Spring Cleaning or The Monster at the End of This Book starring lovable, furry old Grover. There’s a lot more substance to these books because the shows are actually quality media for toddlers and preschoolers. If you haven’t read Preschool Clues by Angela Santomero, the creator of “Blue’s Clues” and “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” as well as “Wishenpoof” and “Creative Galaxy,” it’s a really interesting, helpful book and definitely informs how I choose which shows I let my kids watch and for how long. I’ll link it in the shownotes in case you’re interested.
The second exception is singalong books. The lullaby is, of course, a hallmark of bedtime, so I’ve found that if you pick a book that you can also sing your toddler will be more likely to stay on your lap even if it’s a new book. And just FYI if you’re curious, our favorite example of a good musical bedtime book is What A Wonderful World, which I talked about in Episode 1 if you want to hear more about it.
And the third exception to reading only familiar books at bedtime is this: I’ve found that a really great thing to do during your last reading session of the day with an active toddler is to choose books that have something to do with what you’ve done that day or something that you’re going to do tomorrow. This helps the child make connections between the words and actions that he hears about in the story with real-life experiences and objects. In that way he is therefore better able to connect with the story and learn the meanings of the words he hears more quickly. And, most importantly for the purposes of this episode, he is more likely to sit still and pay attention to the book if he knows he will get to “act it out” tomorrow or relive the experiences that he had that day. So, for example, if you are going to make soup or stew the next day, you could tell your child the plan for the day and say something like, “Tomorrow we’re going to make a delicious soup and we’re going to go to the grocery store and get all the ingredients and come home and put it all together and then invite your grandparents over to eat with us. So tonight we’re going to read a story about a scrumptious stew to get us ready. Do you want to be my helper and read this story with me?” And then you can read your child Thank You, Omu!, one of the books we talked about in the last episode. Or, for another personal example, on the night before one of my oldest son James’s first visits to the Baltimore Aquarium, I chose Divya Srinivasin’s Octopus Alone and said to James, “Tonight we are going to read a special book about things we’re going to see tomorrow. Tomorrow we’re going to go to the aquarium and see all kinds of fish and other sea creatures like turtles, sharks, and maybe even an octopus like this one. Let’s read this book together and you can point out which sea creatures you want to see tomorrow, okay?” Then, the next day, when we were at the aquarium and we saw a sea horse, I said to James, “Look! There’s a seahorse, like Octopus’s friend!” And he was super excited because, first, thanks to this book he knew what a seahorse was and could spot one, and second, he thought that it was so amazing that what he’d previously only read about was actually real and he could see it moving there right in front of him. And then you can make this into an even more verbal experience for your child by saying things like, “This seahorse looks a little smaller than Octopus’s friends, doesn’t it? He’s very tiny, almost miniscule, isn’t he?” Or “What color would you say this seahorse is? Yellow? Yes, I think you’re right. This one looks yellow. Do you remember what colors Octopus’s seahorse friends were?” And that way you can have an even more engaging, intentional conversation while you’re having the experience or doing the activity. James was so thrilled when he spotted the various creatures he’d read about the night before AND he was also really happy to re-read the book that night after our visit because he was excited to point out the sea creatures that he saw. We spent a long time just talking about each creature and whether or not we saw it earlier that day. Also, weirdly, I think he was even more enthusiastic and excited to point out the sea creatures that he didn’t see. He kept saying things like, “Look Mommy! A WHALE! I NOT see a whale at the aquarium!” So I spent a lot of that read aloud session trying to sound equally thrilled: “Nope, we didn’t see a whale! Amazing!” … Again, toddlers are a peculiar, funny breed of human.
STRATEGY #3: READING AT WAKETIME
Okay, moving on to Strategy #3, which is Reading at Waketime.
So we all know that bedtime reading is a great way to incorporate reading into your child’s routine, but I found that when James was at the height of his anti-sitting-still phase, he actually really enjoyed reading as soon as he woke up. Waketime is the perfect opportunity to take advantage of your child’s sleepiness and desire for cuddles and read a few stories before you get him dressed and ready for the day. James liked to have a bottle of milk or water when he woke up, so he was usually very content to sit on my lap, drink his milk, and read a story. It was nice for me, as well, especially because, at the time he was at his most mobile as a toddler, I was pregnant with Luke and mornings were, let’s just say, not my favorite time of day. So it was a good way to ease into the day to either just sit with James on my lap on his rocking chair for 15 minutes or bring him over to our room and read with him in bed.
The key for this reading time is to only try to get through a couple of books or so, otherwise your child will definitely get antsy and she might then be reluctant to sit down with you at another point in the day because she’ll start to dread a long session of sitting still.
And just an FYI, waketime reading is a nice thing to continue even when your child isn’t a toddler and has grown a longer attention span and tolerance for sitting still. We actually still do waketime reading now and it is such a nice way to start the day. When Luke was born, I usually read to James as I nursed Luke and it made that time in the morning more enjoyable for all of us. And, bonus, because we built in this habit while James was a toddler (he’s currently two months shy of 4 years old), if he wakes up before us, often he will just sit in his room and read some of his picture books to himself which buys my husband Eric and me some more sleep in the mornings. Definitely a win.
STRATEGY #4: CHOOSE WISELY (FAMILIAR BOOKS/CHARACTER-DRIVEN BOOKS/INTERACTIVE BOOKS
Okay, next up is Strategy #4: Choose Wisely (Familiar Books/Character driven books/Interactive Books).
So when I say “choose wisely,” I mean, again, choose familiar books or books with characters that your toddlers love, which we already talked about, but I also mean choose books that are interactive in some way. So, for example, lift-the-flap books or books that have sliding panels or books that require your toddler to participate in some way are all excellent choices for this busy stage of development. A really great one for young toddlers is Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See?—which, again, I talked about at length in Episode 1 if you’d like to hear more about that one and why I like a specific version of this book. Where’s Spot?, Pat the Bunny, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar are three other classic examples of interactive books, while Little Blue Truck’s Springtime is a contemporary lift-the-flap that my children love and that I talked about in detail in Episode 2. But even if the book doesn’t have an extra sensory element like a flap or holes or scratch-and-sniff like Where’s Spot or Pat the Bunny or The Very Hungry Caterpillar, there are still a lot of great board books and picture books that require your child to respond or participate in some way that work well for active toddlers. For example, a great one for younger toddlers is Are You A Cow? by Sandra Boynton because it asks your toddler “Are you a cow?” or “Are you a frog?” or a duck, and so on, and little kids think this is hilarious. Another really good one for older active toddlers is Press Here by Hervé Tullet. Each Peach Pear Plum by Allen and Janet Ahlberg is a great one if you’ve also started to introduce your child to fairy tales or nursery rhymes. And speaking of nursery rhymes, collections that include folktales or classic nursery rhymes like Mother Goose Treasuries are also really great for active toddlers because you can use the rhyme and rhythm as a way to interact with your child, by bouncing him/her along to the beat or clapping your hands, or pretending your fingers are a spider with “The Itsy Bitsy Spider,” or pretending you and your toddler are rowing the boat in ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” These are also great because each story or tale is short, so you’re more likely to get through it without resistance.
And if you’re sick of reading classic nursery rhymes or if you find some of them problematic as I do (but that’s a story for another day), other great choices are just contemporary picture books that rhyme and have a lot of repetition in the language and plot. Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler are my favorite author and illustrator pair who write this type of book. Room on the Broom and The Gruffalo and Zog are books that can really hold your child’s attention and are also excellent because they are so easily memorize-able and recitable. So once your child is confident with a story like these, you can see if she can recite parts of it back to you or to someone else on her own. This helps develop her memory and speaking skills and also helps to build her confidence as a reader.
STRATEGY #5: CHOOSE AN UNCONVENTIONAL LOCATION
Okay, moving on to Strategy #5. Choose an Unconventional Location
As much as routine and familiarity are important to toddlers, small children also like to have mini adventures and you can make reading in a different place one of these adventures. You’ve probably already noticed that small children really love cozy spaces. Even if the room is palatial, your young child will probably gravitate toward the smallest nook. Sometimes this can be exasperating when, let’s say, you have an entire area designated and outfitted for a play area, yet your toddler chooses to play under the dining room table (insert exasperated woman emoji here). Anyway, both of my kids LOVED—and continue to love—reading in a small, cozy spaces, so usually two or three times a week we make up a little reading nook and cram in it together with a stack of books and a couple of lanterns and have a special read-aloud. And I make these particular read-alouds into a little “adventure” of sorts: I have my kids select the books that they want to read and we run around trying to find pillows and blankets to make it extra cozy and we find snack and lanterns and flashlights and they each bring a few stuffed animals to listen, too. Our personal favorite spot is their little house under the stairs that their Pappou (my dad) built when we finished our basement. I’ll put a photo of it in the shownotes so you can see it if you’d like, but, in any case, it’s very cute and they take ownership of that little house as if it really is their home and they are inviting me to visit, so, it’s like an honor for me to be allowed in. Consequently, they get really excited about this particular reading experience and are perfectly happy to sit in there and get through most of the stack of books before they decide it’s time to get out. Kids like hygge, too! So next time you want to have a cozy read-aloud session, you can make the space under your dining room table into a fort and read in there; or have your child help you gather up a bunch of pillows and read in the closet; or if you have a tent, set it up in your living room or in your backyard and read in there; we also like to read in the top bunk of James’s bed which is shaped like a little fort. Another idea for an unconventional location if you or your child do NOT like small spaces, (which, of course, some children really do not) is to bring some books along with you to the park, or to set up a blanket and pillows in your backyard or on your deck, or one of my friends really likes to read books with her kids on their trampoline. If you make a big deal about it being a special experience, your toddler will most likely be super enthusiastic about it. That’s one of the beautiful things about this age—everything is an adventure.
And my last suggestion relating to choosing an unconventional location is to always bring along a few books in your car or your diaper bag when you go somewhere. Like, if you have an older child and they have a swimming or music lesson or sports practice, bring along some books to read aloud to your toddler while you wait because most of the time, the alternative is for them to just be bored sitting there so they might be excited to have some favorite books to peruse or some new books to try out. I used to do this with Luke before we went into lockdown while waiting in carline to pick up James from preschool if we were early. And restaurants are also great places to bring some books for active toddlers. We have a bunch of board books and early reader books that we bought at Costco, and I don’t care if these particular books get messy, so I usually packed those along back in the days when we actually went out to eat. They probably won’t hold your toddler’s attention for the entire time that you wait for your meal, but even if you only get through one book, that’s a win.
STRATEGY #6: READ AND PLAY
Okay, moving on to our sixth and final strategy which is Read and Play–which is exactly what it sounds like: You read aloud while your toddler plays. Leading voices in research and education say that very young children learn best while they play. I’ve found that when it comes to reading aloud, sometimes toddlers actually pay more attention when they are concurrently doing something with their hands. So if your toddler is reluctant to read aloud because she doesn’t want to sit still, presenting her with some toys to play with while you read to her can be enticing. Whether she’s putting together a chunky puzzle or stacking blocks or coloring or finger-painting or twisting a pipe-cleaner, even using playdoh (if she is old enough not to eat it), if your toddler is listening while she does something with her hands it doesn’t matter that you aren’t having a quiet, cozy read aloud session: the important thing is that you are reading to your child and exposing her to the pleasures of language and story. Also, I’ve found that usually if I sit down with a book at read aloud time and give my toddler something to play with while I read, more often than not, after a few minutes he’ll come and sit closer to me so that he can see the pages. Sometimes he’ll bring along whatever he was playing and continue to play while I read, but a lot of the time he’ll just abandon whatever I’d given him and climb onto my lap. Either way, I know he’s listening and absorbing what I’m saying. And, just incidentally, I personally love listening to audiobooks (especially nonfiction audiobooks) when I clean or I drive or I cook, so why shouldn’t my child be able to do his “work” while listening to a story, too?
Additionally, I feel like I have to say here that I don’t mean read to your child while she is engaged in imaginative play. When your child is pretending to play doctor or chef or if she’s playing house or involved in some other kind of play that requires her to be totally immersed in the experience, this type of play is different and brain-building in another way so it’s best not to interrupt this kind of play, but instead join in if your child wants you to. I’ll talk more about this in a minute. The kind of play that I’m talking about here is when your toddler can play with or work on something that doesn’t require her full attention or her imagination, like stacking blocks for the millionth time or doing a puzzle she’s already on her way to mastering. Asking your child if she would like you to read her a story while she “works” on something that targets a different area of her brain is a great way to add books to your day while building other skills. For this reason, I like to choose toys that #1) actually take a bit of time because I want to try to start subtly lengthening my toddler’s attention span and #2) I like to choose toys that work on fine motor skills and dexterity because those are other key skills toddlers should work on and they target different areas of her brain. So, for example, with my boys, I really like this set of knobbed cylinders and sockets that’s often used in Montessori preschools. It works on training their visual discrimination of dimensions like high and low, big and small, and it also works on refining their voluntary movement and their pincer grip and finger coordination which will help them later when they are learning how to hold a pencil. I also like these little colorful puzzles from a brand called mudpuppy that come in their own little zippered bag and that are easy for your toddler to manipulate, but still challenging enough to maintain her interest. The HABA garden that I mentioned in Episode 2 is also a favorite with my kids. And a company called Hape also makes these really great chunky wooden threading toys that both of my sons enjoyed as toddlers and continue to play with now. Another great option is having your child stack nesting blocks while you read or play with this really satisfying toy called a Dimpl made by a brand called Fat Brain Toys. Again, I’ll list a few of the toys we love during read-aloud time in the shownotes so that you can get an idea of what might be a good choice for your child.
Okay, before I end this episode, I think it’s important to understand that sometimes your child just doesn’t want to sit still and read and that’s okay. Dr. Dana Suskind in her book Thirty Million Words: Building a Child’s Brain: Tune In, Talk More, Take Turns, tells us that it’s perfectly fine if we let our child keep playing instead of making her sit down and read. That actually, at these moments, what’s most important is to tune in to what your child is doing and then join in the play. In fact, because young children lack the executive function to stay focused on an activity that they find uninteresting, even the words of a really great story will have little to no effect on the child’s brain development or vocabulary retention if he’s unwilling or unable to really listen to it. So, what’s most important is that you as a parent follow your child’s attention, relate to it, and communicate with your child in a meaningful way. The verbal interaction that you have with your child when you are helping her improve the skills being used in play also help to develop your child’s brain. So, for example, if I ask Luke to read with me, but he’d rather be baking his pretend cupcakes, instead of just trying to force the issue I might try to join in the play. I could ask questions like, “May I help you bake those cupcakes? … What kind of cupcakes are they? … Vanilla? Chocolate? Lemon? Red velvet? … Red velvet! Yum ! … Should we put some fluffy cream icing on top of these red velvet cupcakes? … Yes, that sounds good to me, too… How many cupcakes do we need to ice? Six? Let’s count them as we ice them! … 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6! Six cupcakes! … Wow, these cupcakes are delicious! They are scrumptious! They are delectable! What do you think could be another word for how delicious these cupcakes are? Yummy! Yes, that’s a great word!” By doing this, by joining in his play and engaging him in conversation about whatever he’s doing, he’s still having a rich verbal experience even if we’re not reading. So don’t try to read at the expense of conversations like these. And don’t beat yourself up if read-aloud just isn’t in the cards some days. Just hang in there and look for the next opportunity to read aloud and pounce on it when it happens. The key is to look for the moments when your child is in between activities and bored. Remember, so many wonderful children’s books–like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the wordless picture book Journey, The Secret Garden—these all begin with a bored child because the remedy for boredom is curiosity.
So that’s it for this episode of the Exquisitely Ever After podcast! Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to me talk about reading to children today. I hope these strategies prove useful to you when you sit down to read with your active toddlers. As always, please visit the show notes at exquisitelyeverafter.com/episode7 for a complete list of the books and toys that were mentioned today and you can also download my free list of 50 Diverse Picture Books as well as my list of the 25 Best Board Books for Toddlers there, too,. And if you liked this episode or this podcast in general, please do subscribe, it’s totally free and by subscribing you ensure that you don’t miss any new episodes. AND, if you have a minute, please leave me a review on iTunes. For a new show like mine, it helps SO much. And I’d also love to hear: what are your strategies for reading aloud to busy and active toddlers? As I said, my son Luke is now entering the super-active, never-wants-to-sit-still phase, so I’d love to hear if you have any go-to tips or tricks. Let me know by sending me an email at christina@exquisitelyeverafter.com or you can dm me on Instagram at exquisitelyeverafter or you can leave me a comment on the blog post for this episode, at exquisitelyeverafter.com/episode7. Thank you so much again for listening! Take care, keep safe, and, of course, keep reading!
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