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Before our son Avi was born, I dreamed of being the mom that always reads to her child every night. I wanted him to grow up to be an avid reader like me. I bought him several books to get us started when he was only a few months old. It was easy to read to him regularly because I was on maternity leave for three months.
Once I got back to work, our storytime grew more infrequent. We only read to Avi when we remembered to read to him. I even got a couple of mini-scoldings from his doctor about making sure to read to him regularly to develop his vocabulary.
After these visits, I got even more books but we failed to create a regular routine of reading with Avi. After some trial and error, I finally figured out a couple of simple hacks to help us incorporate reading into our everyday life:
Keep Books in the Diaper Bag
I usually keep one or two small and lightweight books in Avi’s diaper bag. This makes it easy read to him when he’s bored or fussy when out of the house. I even found some tractor books that had wheels on them so these doubled as toys!
Make Books Visible at all Times
I keep a couple of books in his crib and in the living room. Seeing them everywhere at home reminds me to read to Avi instead of letting him watch TV all day. It also helps to remind me to put my phone down and take time to read and play with him.
Leave Books in the Car
My husband and son usually drop me to work and pick me up at the end of the day. During these trips, especially in the morning, I would read to Avi instead of having him watch his ipad. I read him the same 3-4 books then try to swap out for a new set the following week. You can tell he likes this part of our morning drive because he’s pretty attentive when I read to him and he gets really cranky when I finish the last book!
Avi has yet to develop a proper vocabulary but you can tell it has made an impact on him. Whenever I would finish reading to him, he would clap his hands and cry for more books. Sometimes he would grab books on the shelf to browse through on his own. Just yesterday, we noticed that, when Avi wants us to read to him, he would bring a book and put it in our hands!
I’ve also started to incorporate Filipino children’s books to our storytime so Avi can learn Tagalog. I usually read 4 books to him at a time: two books in English and two books in Tagalog with English translations. It’s been a fun lesson for both of us since I really have to brush up on my speaking and reading skills!
In addition, I’d like to eventually start borrowing children’s books from the library to save money. However, Avi is still at the age where he bites books and pulls of pages.
Although we still have to develop a regular routine of reading to our son, these have helped us incorporate reading in our daily lives.
How do you incorporate toddler reading in your everyday life?
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