Reading to children can look different at different ages.  I thought I’d give you some ideas on what it should look like for certain age groups.

0-6 Months

At this age, it’s usually very easy to sit down with the child in your lap and read to them normally.  At this stage, simple pictures, bold colors, black and white and pictures of real humans (especially baby & family members) are the best.

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6-12 Months

This is a good time for very short books.  Books with lots of colors, real human faces, and animals are very good at this age.  Books that are songs and have finger plays or body movements to go along with them (Eensy Wensy Spider) are very good for this age.

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12-24 Months

This is usually one of the hardest stages for me to read books to kids.  I have found that many children are just “too busy” to sit down and read a book.  (There are exceptions, I had one who always wanted to be read to.)  However, reading books to children is so important at any stage, so be diligent, stay with it, keep trying, and make it fun.  I’ve had to really train my brain to change the way I read to this age and my expectations.  At this age, it’s alright if you just open a book and point to pictures and say what they are or to only read 2-3 pages at a time.

This age will usually only give you a few seconds to minutes to read.  So don’t get discouraged if you read 2-3 pages and they are done, that’s fine.  Try again later.  This age really seems to like books where things are labeled.  Animal books, body part books, color books, etc are very good at this age.  Keep the text simple and short for best results!

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2-3 Years

I have found that bright colors and rhyming tend to be favorites at this age.  Usually books about favorite characters start to appear at this age too, however, some of those can be a little long for their attention spans.

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3-4 Years

Children of this age seem to love silly books.  Audio books that go with an actual book tend to be very popular too!  Books about the alphabet are good at this stage too.

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4-5 Years

This is a good time to start introducing longer books. On the other side, starting with pre-reader books, books with lots of high frequency words and the like are good too.

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5-6 Years

At this stage, they should start to be reading to you a little bit.  This is also a good time to start reading chapter books to your child.  Try to get books with fewer pictures, so that they can learn and practice visualizing the pictures in their heads.

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6-7 Years

They should start to read easy chapter books on their own.  This is also a good age to ask them to read to younger siblings.  That gives them a chance to practice more, especially on the basic reading skills, while boosting their confidence.

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Click here for our list of favorite kids books!