Books are Brilliant!

As a qualified primary school teacher, I am fully aware of and promote the benefits of reading. You may be forgiven for thinking that these benefits are on applicable to older children, after all what's the use of reading with a baby or a toddler? They don't understand right?

Wrong! 

Reading to babies and toddlers is a wonderful experience. Reading encourages early language development and communication. 

It's a bonding experience that allows you to spend quality time with your child, by far my most favourite time of the day. I have to admit, we hadn't had a strict reading routine up until Freddie was around 13 months but since then, we have enjoyed a bedtime story every night.

We make it into a family occasion and where possible, all three of us like to sit in Freddie's big boy bed and read together. F loves to turn the pages whilst Daddy and I read the words. He joins in with the actions and points to the pictures of things he recognises. 

I won't go in to the ins and outs of the benefits but there are some particularly good online sites such as Teaching Reading Early and Bookstart which expand on this. 

We love reading and we think Books are Brilliant! 

Books are Brilliant is my new feature which will be appearing every Thursday. Each week, I'll be reviewing a new children's book and I'll also be looking for guest bloggers to contribute also so we can begin to build up a whole library of recommended children's books.

If you would like to contribute, please email me at awholeninemonths@hotmail.co.uk.