STORYWRAPS: Baby Explores - reading to your baby

Try to guess the book and author that this line came from....

"Where's Papa going with the axe?" said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast."

*** Answer to yesterday's quote: "Invitation" by Shel Shilvestein ***

Why Read to My Baby?

You may wonder about the benefits of reading to your baby. An infant won't understand everything you're doing or why. But you wouldn't wait until your child could understand what you were saying before you started speaking to him or her, right? Nor would you bypass lullabies until your baby could carry a tune or wait until he or she could shake a rattle before you offered any toys.

Reading aloud to your baby is a wonderful shared activity you can continue for years to come — and it's an important form of stimulation.

Reading aloud:

teaches a baby about communication
introduces concepts such as numbers, letters, colors, and shapes in a fun way
builds listening, memory, and vocabulary skills
gives babies information about the world around them

Believe it or not, by the time babies reach their first birthday they will have learned all the sounds needed to speak their native language. The more stories you read aloud, the more words your child will be exposed to and the better he or she will be able to talk.

Hearing words helps to build a rich network of words in a baby's brain. Kids whose parents frequently talk/read to them know more words by age 2 than children who have not been read to. And kids who are read to during their early years are more likely to learn to read at the right time.

When you read, your child hears you using many different emotions and expressive sounds, which fosters social and emotional development. Reading also invites your baby to look, point, touch, and answer questions — all of which promote social development and thinking skills. And your baby improves language skills by imitating sounds, recognizing pictures, and learning words.

But perhaps the most important reason to read aloud is that it makes a connection between the things your baby loves the most — your voice and closeness to you — and books. Spending time reading to your baby shows that reading is a skill worth learning. And, if infants and children are read to often with joy, excitement, and closeness, they begin to associate books with happiness — and budding readers are created.

Source: kidshealth.org

Today's featured book is:

Title: SkyWonders

Author: Sophie Helenek

About the book:

This book (and all the book in the series) is perfect for a baby. The design and colours stimulate baby and peak her interest in books. The size of the book and the content are age appropriate and your new born to toddler will be mesmerized by viewing, handling and bonding with the significant adults in their lives as the book is shared again and again. SkyWonders enhances your child's developmental growth such as memory, vision, speech and social skills - all components necessary to raise a happy, healthy, successful reader in your family. Your baby will love this series I am positive.

About the author:

Sophia is a recovering investment baker, the youngest French woman to climb Mount Everest and in 2013 - a new mother.

Describe the process of writing your books.It was an emotional roller coaster. You go all over the map. I started confidently, drafting a few things, but then I hit the wall. I had doubted and questioned myself: Is it any good? What am I doing? Then I was able to put myself together, had a second breath, and kept writing. Hit the wall again, and I almost gave up. But I stayed strong. With lots of courage and resilience, I finished and published My First Book series, which includes four books: Fruits, Sky Wonders, Shapes, and Musical Instruments.

My inspiration was my daughter. When she was a small baby, I showed her an M.C. Escher book. She seemed to like the black and white spiral drawings. When I say "like," I understand you don't really know what is going on in an infant's head, but I could tell that something happened. I was surprised and started reading about how babies' eyes work, what they see, and why.

At birth, babies are very nearsighted; that is why they are interested in bold black and white shapes and high contrast patterns. Eager to learn more, I read bunch of studies on speech development, child temperament, and babies' milestones. Gathering all this information, I developed and designed My First Books series from a baby's perspective. I wanted to write an engaging book that promotes bonding and supports an infant's developmental growth milestones: vision, memory, speech, and social skills.

They are not just picture books or bedtime stories but rather activity books conceived to stimulate a baby's senses.

Here how it works:

At first, a baby will enjoy simple illustrations with black-and-white and high-contrast patterns designed especially for the very young to focus on.
As babies gets older, their brains learn to distinguish bright primary colors and will start identifying the illustrations with the words you read, which triggers their memory process.
Each picture is accompanied by a simple word that babies will love repeating and which helps their speech development.
The last pages show all the illustrations together, which also helps the baby's memory process.
My First Book series offers a special feature for toddlers, as they can write on the book with a white board pen, wipe it, and write again!

Other books in the series are: