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You might read that title and think, “Wait, there are rules for reading to my baby? Don’t I just pick up the book and read it?” Sure, you totally can do that- reading in any capacity is beneficial for little ones! But, if you follow these five guidelines you’ll be making the most out of reading and your little one is way more likely to attend, interact, and engage with you while reading. And that’s the goal after all!

In order to get the most BANG FOR YOUR BUCK while reading to your baby, keep these 5 rules in mind:

One: Keep the book, and your words, SHORT.

Yep. Pick a small board book that’s about 5-7 pages. These are some of my favorites! Point out ONE or TWO things on each page. Prompt your little one to turn the page and see what’s next. Repeat until the end and finish! Reading a book from start to finish is important in order to teach littles how to functionally engage with a book and keep their attention for the entire story, but if you can only do a few pages as you get going- that’s fine too. Work your way up!

Two: Don’t always talk first.

Especially with touch and feel books- let your little one explore the page! You don’t have to talk on each page, nor should you expect a response from your child on each page. A child who is looking, touching, and interested in a book is engaging appropriately! Try not to interrupt this learning by prompting them to follow a direction or imitate you on every page. See what they do. Open the book and wait for them to make a sound, look at you, or reach for the page. Then label what they are touching or start reading! Remember: body movements are communication, too!

Three: Pick an engaging book.

Littles are more likely to engage with books that are small, easy-to-hold, colorful, filled with flaps, cut-outs or sound buttons. Sure, you can read a chapter book out loud to your child, but are they going to piece together what’s happening? Will they learn the labels of items? What sounds animals make? Will they attempt to imitate you with those books? Probably not. Offering a selection of appropriate books is likely going to elicit all of these things instead. Plus, for babies, the goal is for them to hold and engage with the book, not just to sit and listen to story.

Four: Don’t read all the words.

If you picked out a book that has a lot of words on the page- forget the text! Look at the picture and pick a few words (nouns and verbs) and make up a story yourself. For example, instead of, “The little bird spread its wings and took flight over the pond,” say, “Look, a bird! Tweet!” Much simpler and they learn the name of the picture in the book and what sound it makes. Simple is good!

Five: Read every day. Every single day.

A lot of parents say “oh my child is too young/small to really interact with books.” Not true. Newborns can interact with books fairly appropriately (reaching out and touching crinkly books, looking at high contrast images on pages during tummy time). Building that foundation of literacy in the first year is really important. If your little one hasn’t been exposed to books or isn’t showing an interest by 6 months, it’s time to ramp it up! Get creative! Offer books that look like toys, leave books in baskets around the house, read books that involve sounds and singing. The more a child is around books, the more likely they are to start to like them an interact with them.

Some books take 30 seconds to read! That’s it! And your little one will likely want to read it again, and again, and again (until you lose your mind), and all of those book repetitions count as ADDITIONAL BOOKS READ! Yes, if you read Brown Bear 6 times that counts as 6 books read for the day. That’s amazing! If you make it part of your routine, it’ll stick. And it’ll teach your baby that reading is something people do all the time.

It truly is as simple as just reading age-appropriate books to your child.

Remember this:

The largest-ever international study of reading found that the single most important predictor of academic success is the amount of time children spend reading books, more important even than economic or social status. And one of the few predictors of high achievement in math and science is the amount of time children devote to pleasure reading.”

― Nancie Atwell, The Reading Zone: How to Help Kids Become Skilled, Passionate, Habitual, Critical Readers