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- Excerpt
Eight Baby Read-Aloud Basics
an excerpt from the new book
BABY READ-ALOUD BASICS:
Fun and Interactive Ways to Help Your Little One
Discover the World of Words
by Reading Recovery Specialists
Caroline J. Blakemore and Barbara Weston Ramirez
INTRODUCTION
The excerpt below is from the new book, Baby Read-Aloud Basics, a guide to reading to infants that Library Journal calls "groundbreaking."
You might ask yourself, how hard can reading to babies be?
It's not hard at all, of course. In fact, reading to baby
is often the best moment in a busy parent's day. What's
difficult is knowing which books to read when faced with
the overwhelming choices in bookstores and libraries. Baby Read-Aloud Basics provides detailed reviews of books for
six distinct stages of development, from birth to two years
old. These recommendations are a blessing for mothers,
fathers, friends and relatives looking for solid advice on
what books to expose children to -- and when.
Reading aloud to babies helps them understand the structure
of language and facilitates neural connections that prepare
baby for lifelong learning. Authors Caroline J. Blakemore
and Barbara Weston Ramirez are Reading Recovery specialists
with a combined 50 years of experience helping children
with reading disabilities. In Baby Read-Aloud Basics, they pay special attention to bilingual families, demonstrating
how reading to baby in any language will help them learn
the dominant language when they start school.
The excerpt covers Eight Baby Read-Aloud Basics -- simple
things an adult should take into consideration before
reading to babies. More information about the book and
authors follows the excerpt. Enjoy!
Eight Baby Read-Aloud Basics
by Reading Recovery Specialists
Caroline J. Blakemore and Barbara Weston Ramirez
Chapter One covered the wide-reaching benefits of reading
to your baby. In this chapter, we present a few simple
suggestions to help you and your baby begin a journey
together that will enrich your lives. Besides the calming
and bonding benefits, you'll develop a conversational
resonance through everyday ideas and events that children's
books inspire. In the very beginning you may feel like it's
a one-way monologue, but before you know it, you'll be in a
dialogue in which your baby responds to you by locking her
eyes in rapt attention on your eyes, your mouth, and the
book. She'll wiggle her legs and arms, and breathe faster.
In return, you'll read more to her, and the read-aloud
dance is underway with all its lifetime benefits of
increased vocabulary and language skills.
1. Newborns Need a Quiet Reading Environment
As your baby makes the transition from a uterine
environment to our noisy, well-lit, open-air world, many
physiological changes are taking place. A newborn's
perceptual system does not screen out everything that her
eyes see, her ears hear, or her skin feels. Be sensitive to
your newborn's needs by providing quiet time when she can
listen clearly to your voice as you talk or read to her.
When reading to your baby, turn off any competing noises,
such as the television, stereo, or radio. In early infancy,
it is especially important to prevent over stimulation or
stress. During read-alouds, allow your baby to hear only
you rhythmic voice without the disturbance of background
noises.
2. Newborns are Comforted by the Sound of Your Voice
Initially, right after your child's birth, you have a lot
of leeway in what you may select to read to your baby. One
parent told us he read aloud from the stock market pages of
the newspaper. Since babies are mostly focusing on your
voice at the outset, you could read anything aloud.
However, since babies love your melodious voice the best
choice right after birth might be any kind of rhymes, such
as Mother Goose.
Some parents start right out with board books, such as
Goodnight Moon, and note that their babies become so
accustomed to these books that they continue to request
them for the first year or longer. Gradually you will
become aware of your baby's favorites and select books that
you know he would like. As babies mature, they become
pickier and let you know what they like through their body
language. Whatever you choose to read, become aware of the
effect of the sound of your voice on your baby. Notice your
baby's excited movements when you read with enthusiasm or
change the pitch of your voice.
3. Hold and Cuddle Your Baby When You Read
The most important thing to remember when reading a book to
your infant is that you are providing love, attention, and
intimacy while giving important language input. When babies
are old enough to begin to choose books and bring them to
you to read, often what they really want is to cuddle and
be given loving attention.
When you first hold a newborn it can feel awkward,
especially before they can hold their heads up. Imagine
holding a book and the newborn at the same time. After a
little practice, you'll find the most comfortable position,
whether it's in your favorite rocker with a "boppy" (a
donut-shaped lap pillow often used by nursing mothers) or
lying next to your baby on the bed.
4. When Choosing a Book, Allow Your Baby to Be Your Guide
There is no prescription from pediatricians, educators, or
psychologists recommending a list of books for each stage
of a child's early development. This is a good thing, as we
have never encountered identical lists of books from
parents we interviewed. Each child is unique and has his
own preferences. One size does not fit all. Parents begin
early with books they think their child will like and then
reread many, many times those that get a favorable
reaction. In each of Chapters Three through Eight, we
provide detailed reviews of several age-appropriate books
with tips for how they can be used to launch rich
interactions between you and your baby. You can readily
adapt these tips to whatever books you and your baby
prefer.
Newborns benefit most from hearing your familiar voice
reading poems or books with rhythm and rhyme when they are
awake or asleep. After the first two or three months, your
baby will react favorably by looking back and forth with
interest between your face and the book, wiggling her legs
and hands with excitement, or smiling happily. Conversely,
if your baby is not enthused about a book she may look away
from your face and the book, push the book aside, or fall
asleep. By the time your baby is a year or more, she will
select the books she wants you to read from the shelf,
pile, or basket.
Your choice of books is not as important as making the
choice to read to your baby on a regular basis. By making
that choice, you will give your baby a powerful boost of
language development, the benefits of which will last a
lifetime. More importantly, your baby will associate
reading with cuddly love and attention.
5. Start Reading at Any Page
You don't have to finish a book, or even start at the
beginning. You can go right to the part you know your baby
likes best and have fun on one or more pages by dramatizing
different parts with a variety of voice inflections and
tones. Your baby may even want to switch back and forth
between one book and another. Often baby books do not
contain stories, but illustrated rhymes or labeled
pictures. Skipping around the text is easy in these types
of books. If there's a story line, it still doesn't matter
if you pick and choose pages that interest your baby.
6. You Don't Have to Read All of the Words in the Book
Sometimes you'll find that your baby prefers that you
merely point to the illustrations and name some objects, or
that you make up your own words or story as you go along
rather than reading what the words on the page say. Your
baby will let you know. For example, when you select a
favorite book for your baby, if you know from previous
readings that your child prefers a certain page, you can
turn directly to that page. You can read it in the way your
baby loves to hear, perhaps dramatizing certain sentences
or words by speaking them more loudly or in a squeaky
voice. How will you know what your baby likes best? She may
wiggle her arms and legs or gaze at the page with great
interest. She might also look at the page longer than other
pages.
For a wordless picture book, like Tana Hoban's White on
Black, you may dream up anything you want to say about the
pictures of simple objects. Your baby will show you which
pictures she's most intrigued by. In this interaction with
your baby the most important element is listening,
observing and following your baby's cues. Your baby will
let you know what pages she prefers and how long to remain
on a page. Usually, at this stage it's best to remain on a
page for only a few seconds.
7. Repeated Readings are Good for Baby's Language
Development
As soon as your child can speak in phrases some of the
first words you'll hear are "read it again." Hearing
language from books repeatedly helps children memorize it.
Eight-month-olds can remember certain words that are read
to them after two weeks of hearing repeated readings.
Reading the same books over and over again may seem an
interminable task, but the language benefits as well as
your child's joy will keep you going.
Even at birth babies have been shown to prefer hearing
books that were read to them in utero. Researchers gave
newborns a choice between hearing their mothers read a new
book or hearing a book read repeatedly before birth. Using
a sucking device, babies responded by increased sucking
when they heard the familiar book read to them before
birth. Rereading of traditional nursery rhymes starting at
birth helps your baby identify and learn the sounds of his
language. A good knowledge of sound discrimination forms
the basis of later reading and writing skills.
8. Use "Parentese" when Reading and Talking to Your Baby
If you think reading to babies is having a quiet baby on
your lap soaking up every word that you read straight from
the book, think again. Reading to babies looks and feels
very different from reading to older children. The
principal difference in reading to babies as opposed to
older children is the way you interrelate using your voice
and a baby book. This way of talking to newborns is called
"parentese."
When parents are in intimate, face-to-face contact with
their babies, they speak in a sing-songy, higher-pitched,
slower, louder voice. When reading, you'll use the baby
book primarily as a vehicle to converse and dialogue with
your baby using your parentese voice. You may use none,
some, or all of the words in the book to have this kind of
conversation.
Studies show that beginning at around five weeks, babies
prefer parentese, rather than regular adult conversation.
Parentese is the best way for babies to hear and learn
language. Studies show that it takes babies twice as long
as adults to process information. With parentese you speak
more slowly so babies can hear the individual sounds and
words in the stream of speech. This helps them distinguish
the unique rhythm of the language spoken in the home.
Babies learn language best when parents speak with their
parentese voices using face-to-face, personal, baby-
directed talk. The more parentese babies hear before the
age of two, the more words they'll learn. A large
vocabulary will lead to higher intelligence and academic
achievement in school. Parentese aids in the process of
learning the sounds, grammar, and structure of language
necessary for effective speaking, reading, and writing.
Copyright ©2006 by Caroline J. Blakemore and Barbara Weston
Ramirez. All Rights Reserved. Please feel free to duplicate
or distribute this file as long as the excerpt is not
altered and this copyright notice is intact. Thank you.
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