How To Get Your Child To Love Reading

I have an early reader whom I am very proud of.   I do not know exactly how she learnt to read but I believe that our habit of daily reading since she was a baby definitely helped.   Here, in retrospect, I share the activities I believe contributed to her reading success.

• Start reading young.  Introduce books to the babies just like you introduce toys and they will love books as much as they love toys.


• Choose interactive books.  Interactive books can help to attract their attention.  I have recommended some books which my baby liked in my previous post.


• Be dramatic when you read.  Incorporate actions when you read.  For example, when I read The Three Little Pigs to my girl, I will always do an exaggerated blowing action when I come to the part where the wolf was huffing and puffing.  One day, my mom took the book and started telling my girl the story in Mandarin.  When she came to the huffing and puffing page, my girl (who was then probably 8-9 months old) started blowing!  My mom got a shock.  My girl actually recognised the content of the story book and could "tell" the story even though she could not talk!


• Run your finger under the word when you read.  That way, the child can relate your spoken word to the written word.


• Read environment prints to her.  An usual trip to the supermarket or mall or restaurant can be very educational.  You can highlight to the child shop/restaurant names, signages, words in menus etc.  This helps to expose her to words which are all around us.  My girl's first sign of reading was by reading "Exit" signs whenever she sees them.  Initially we thought she was just recognising the sign, but soon after, we realised she could read books. 


• Leave little messages to your child for him/her to read.  I liked leaving short messages to my girl on her doodle board for her to read when she wakes up in the morning or when she's home from school. Eg. "Good morning <name>",  "<name> is home from school", "Today is Monday", "<name> loves to go to school".  

I was not taught phonics when I was a child and I am not proficient in it at all.  Therefore I did not teach my child to read via phonics.  It could be another useful method, I am sure.   Regardless, making reading fun and doing it often definitely would help make reading a breeze!  

Once my child started reading, I began to look for good books for her to read.  That's when I found that finding good books for young readers can be such a challenge!  I'll do a post on some recommendations later.   In the meantime, you can browse The Book Depository which carries a much wider selection than the bookstores here plus free shipping!! 

What I Read to My Baby - Recommended Books for 0-2 Years Old

I discovered my little girl could read when she was two.  I started reading to her since she was very little (few months old).  She enjoyed being read to and therefore I read to her everyday.

These are some of the books that she particularly liked (before 2 years old) and therefore I highly recommend them!

1. Goldilocks and the Three Bears: Ladybird Touch and Feel Fairy Tales 

2. The Three Little Pigs: Ladybird Touch and Feel Fairy Tales 

We had all the books in this Ladybird Touch and Feel series, which comprised the above two books and Little Red Riding Hood, The Gingerbread Man, The Enormous Turnip and Jack and the Beanstalk.  I found Goldilocks and the Three Bears and The Three Little Pigs more fun to read aloud, and she seemed to enjoy them more compared to the other titles.  Probably due to the cute bears and pigs.  I did not like Jack and the Beanstalk as it was about Jack climbing up the beanstalk stealing the giant's stuff and I did not like that I had to explain to the child that it was not the right thing to do.  The quality of these board books were fantastic, pictures are colorful and there were many different textures for the babies to touch and feel.  My husband bought them at about S$16+ from a children's bookshop and that was before we found out about The Book Depository which is selling for less than S$10 each!

3. Where is the Green Sheep?

My girl loved this book.  She liked it so much that we actually contemplated using the illustrations in one of the pages to customise a birthday cake for her 1 year old birthday.  We did not do it in the end because we only had a small family party and did not want to order a huge customised cake.  This is a fun book to read, where we go on looking for the green sheep page after page.  But instead of the green sheep, we meet many other colorful sheep engaged in funny activities.  On the very last page where the green sheep was finally found to be fast asleep, my girl would always lie down and pretend to sleep too. It was so cute to watch.  The book is of a good size for bringing out and was especially useful for keeping her occupied during meals out.   

4. We're Going on a Bear Hunt

Unlike the usual children books, this book does not have bright and colorful illustrations.  The illustrations are very nicely drawn, but they are in light neutral colors.  I only noticed this when a friend, who saw my girl enjoying the book, found it strange that the book appealed to my girl given the lack of bright colors. You can actually sing-along to the book which may be why it appeals to children.  What my girl particularly liked in this book was when the big bear appeared and I would dramatically read out the page "What's that? It's a bear!" It excites her totally.  It's also in a good size for bringing out.

5. Busy Garden
I first discovered my girl could read with this book.  Before that she was reading "EXIT" signs and other signages at carparks but we just thought she memorised those signs and that it was cute.  It did not occur to us that she was actually reading!  This is a very fun book for the kids because there are a lot of tabs that the kid can push and pull to make the objects in the book move.  For example, there is a tab that you can move left and right and to make the little boy on the swing move up and down the swing.  This is accompanied by the words "Swing your legs, to and fro, Way up high, back down low".  Very simple and catchy for the little ones.   My girl refused to let me give away this book to her younger nephew because she still likes to play with the tabs in the book.

6. Busy Airport
This is another book that is in the same series as Busy Garden.  Now the setting is changed to that of an airport.  Again, the tabs make the book highly interactive.  Turning the tab on the cover page can make the airplanes fly! My girl and I also particularly liked talking about the various people we see on the page showing the check-in counters and waiting area in the airport.  Eg. The mommy carrying a baby, the boy sleeping on the chair ...  The accompanying words say "Busy airport, say hello.  People come and people go." Very easy for kids to understand and remember.   

7.  Wanda's Washing Machine
This is a fantastic book for girls!  It talks about a girl, Wanda, who is a messy eater and spills food all over her clothes all the time.   Thankfully Wanda and her mom, Wendy, have a washing machine, Walter, who does a great job of cleaning off all the dirt of her clothes.  At the back of the book, there is a big 3D pop-up washing machine and cardboard clothes (exactly those clothes that Wanda wears in the story) that you can actually pop into the washing machine.  I totally love the idea of having a toy in a book (and the toy doesn't take up space!).   Boys would probably like this too.  Afterall, young kids like to help out with little chores in the house like throwing laundry into the washing machine.  Just that this book is so pink, it's obviously targeted at girls.  One of the best buys ever. 

I'm a Stay-at-Home Mom too

A friend shared this link on her Facebook page today.
http://themattwalshblog.com/2013/10/09/youre-a-stay-at-home-mom-what-do-you-do-all-day

Instinctively I clicked on the link because I am a stay-at-home mom (SAHM) too.   When I read this article, what appealed to me most was not about how great SAHMs are, but rather this husband's appreciation of his wife's contribution as a SAHM to the family.

The incidences that the writer wrote about are not unfamiliar to me too.  Just the other day, I bumped into a friend whom I have not met up for a while.  The conversation went like this:

Friend: So you're still not working?
Me: No, I'm looking after my girl full-time.
Friend: Then I think you don't need to work forever already la!

To myself: Just laugh it off. They don't understand.

Stacking Blocks

My girl built this today.  She said it's a wooden house with a triangle roof. I think it's really pretty. :)

Drawings of a 2-3 Year Old

I love to watch my girl draw.  It's simply too adorable watching her focus while creating an image and her (and me too) beaming with pride when she manages to draw something new.

I must say she's not a big fan of drawing though.  Drawings are ad-hoc spur-of-a-moment activities for her.   She wouldn't draw if I asked her to draw something just to show me.   It doesn't work that way.  I don't know if she does not have much interest in drawing in general, or if it's the perfectionist streak in her - she doesn't like to do things unless she's confident of doing them well.

This is one of her first 'legible' drawing - there's a yellow sun, with green grass all over.

Sun and Grass @ 21+ months (Drawn with finger on ipad)

I showed her how to draw a stick man here (left). She was surprisingly co-operative and managed to draw one herself (right) too!

Copied a stick man @ 23+ months

Another stick man drawn a few days later.

Stick man with eyebrows @ 23+ months

This stick man with hair was drawn a few months later - she said it's her daddy!

Stick man with hair @ 27+ months

Managed to draw 2 cherries!

Cherries @ 29+ months

This is a smiling apple with a body!

Apple with body @ 31 months

She impressed me when she started drawing cats.  She could not draw the ears initially and I helped her with those. 

Cat (excluding ears) @ 32 months

Cat with black iris (excluding ears) @ 32+ months

There was a period that she was really into Carebears so we drew a Carebear!  This was drawn by her with some verbal instructions from me (e.g. draw a round snout, some dot dot freckles etc)  and we were looking at a stuffed Carebear while drawing.  It was really cute. She only drew this once ever.

Carebear @ 33+ months

She managed to copy a simple picture of a ladybug.

Copied a ladybug @ 34+ months

She drew 3 hearts - one for daddy, one for mommy and one for herself. How sweet!  This was after she figured out how to write the number '3'.  She would write a horizontal '3' first, then join the two ends to make a heart.  Really ingenious! 

Hearts @ 34+ months

She came home from school one day and drew this cat, complete with the ears. It was just a few days before her 3rd birthday.  She said her teacher taught her. Prior to this, she refused to try drawing the ears herself when I tried to teach her. Well well. The same day, she drew a girl with a ponytail and a cute rabbit! Seemed to me she's happy with her new found skill of drawing an inverted 'U'.

Cat with ears @ 36 months

Rabbit @ 36 months

Girl with ponytail @ 36 months

And here's Mr Lion!

Lion @ 36+ months

And this is her latest drawing...

Cross section of a papaya with seeds @ 37 months