Hello there, anyone can help? I started teaching my daughter YBCR and LR when she was 6 m/o, but i’m not consistent in teaching her ( i stopped the lessons for 1 months plus when she was 9 months due to some working commitment). Then i reliased the importance of teaching a baby to read as early as possible so i continue to teach her to read. I am so glad that she actually can recognize some of the words…it was so amazing!!! I let her flip thru the books and she loves it very much. But the problem is, when i read aloud a fairy tale to her, she can’t pay attention. I try to make a funny face while reading and also doing some facial expressions… but it was unsuccessful. Perhaps, the way i’m reading is incorrect. What is the effective ways of reading aloud to my daughter? please help. Thanks :wacko:
I read to my dd while she is in the bath and I do not read books that a very long because she does not have the attention span. The reason why I choose the bath is because she is a captive audience. She is starting to enjoy being read to now as before she would skwirm in my lap and pull the book out of my hands.
Choose books that don’t take a very long time to read and have 1 to 2 sentences per page for now and then build up to fairytales. Always be expressive with your face and voice and if your not enjoying stop. Work with her attention span not against it and remember it will get better.
Hi Kimba,
Thanks a lot. This will definitely help me. Will try this method to my baby. How big is your baby now? When were you starting to read the fairy tales to your baby?
That’s good advice. Just read shorter books or read books that she is really interested in. Like, if she loves butterflies, read a book about butterflies. She might pay more attention. She will have a longer attention span when she gets older.
My baby is about 5 weeks older than yours. I used to try reading fairytales to her when she was born but she would cry and cry I think it was too overstimulating for her. I still try and read longer stories to her but she is just not interested so I stick to the books she likes and just except that I will have to build her up more slowly than I expected.
I also find that my dd just loves to turn the pages and sometimes I will point to the words on the page and read them out to her quickly before she turns the page. I think this way she is still getting introduced to books she is enjoying having control of turning the pages and I’m happy because at least I’ve read a sentence or two to her.
At this age there is so much going on in their little minds and a whole world to discover that sitting still and reading may not be the easiest thing for them, but just keep persisting and it will get better.
I think nhockday advice about reading to your child about things she is interested in will also help your little on enjoy being read to more.
My DS was the same way for a while. He wouldn’t sit still for half a minute to go through a book.
I do agree, Short books with few words per page is the way to go. My DS loves it when I ask him to point out objects from the pages. He is SO proud when he points to the right one! I also let him turn the pages. Mind you if there is a page in the book that he really likes, all the pages before are pritty much skipped over 
Hi Kimba, Nhockaday and Gage,
Thanks you so much for your inputs. I’d bought a story book with short sentences on each page. I’ll try to read to her on her alert time. Cheers. :yes:
Yes, go for those short books with large words and maybe 1 sentence each page only. Or make your own. I cannot imagine reading a fairytale. I doubt my baby would be interested.
One strategy I have tried with my son is to read to him while he’s playing. I’ll notice that he’ll look at the pages once in awhile, similar to how he will glance at the television when I’m playing YBCR. But mostly he’s absorbing the words at his own pace. Of course, he’ll also try to grab the book and turn pages, but I think this is also part of his learning.
I also think 11 months is probably a bit young for fairy tales. My daughter began listening to them at about 21 months of age and even then we used the Ladybird nursery stories level 1 and 2 which only have one or two sentences per page. Once she knew the story from those books we could move to more in depth and longer fairy stories - ie we read her Goldilocks and the Three Bears in a very shortened form and then found a longer version and she liked that too.
At 11 months I spent a lot of time pointing out the pictures and discussing them or asking her to point to a particular picture. Use things she likes - if she likes animals find stories with animals in them and so on. At 11 months I just wanted my daughter to enjoy books. I think she got that books have words in them at about 13 or 14 months old when she pointed to a word in a book with only one word per page - before that it was only the pictures that got her attention.
Don’t worry too much about the written word in books at this age - even now with my daughter we sometimes paraphrase a book. Telling a story back to you in their own words is just as much a skill in developing reading as knowing what the exact words say.