Raising a Reader – Part 1
When you look at your 3 month old little one, have you wondered what would be running in their heads or what would they be looking at? Would they notice us and so on. Here at Lil Trails, we are taking you on a journey to share parenting tips to Raise a Reader. Generally little ones can see about 8-10 inches distance at that age and highly contrasting colours which help in their optic nerve development. Their colour perception is limited to shades of black and white.
So what can we as parents do at this age?
Use Visual Stimulation cards to support their development of sight which also helps in development of cognitive skills and focus of attention. We had a set of these cards for Lil D and it helped in the simulation process. These cards help when the baby is lying on the back or at tummy time. Placed them around at visual distance from the little one and you can notice that they try to focus on them and many a times coo out to them too. This helps in building their neck muscles too.
Seeing the benefit of the Visual Cards with Lil D, we always gift our expecting friends a set of Visual cards that we have designed at @theartbrewco .
What else could you do to help your little one at 0-6 months?
• Talk to them at every instance that you can
• Sing to them too – they love the tones, sounds and words.
• Read to them. They may not make sense of it, but do enjoy the sounds that you make – you could use one liner books with large contrasting coloured images.
• Be engaging and responsive to their actions
As they crossover from 6 months, you can see more movement in children as their muscles get stronger. They would reach out to objects around the crib and will enjoy feeling objects, materials and their textures. Textures can be introduced in books that have various fabrics/materials put together for that or you could just pull out varied texture fabrics from your wardrobe and let them experience it. Don’t forget that you can read books all along to them. Maintain a routine and do it regularly without missing out on it. Once they can sit up, put them on your lap and let them observe as you read through the book. As they head above 9 months, introduce flip books as they have the grasping ability and motor skills to flip objects. They would love the peek-a-boo books. When reading large board books, hold out their index finger to the book and take them along. This allows them to enjoy an interactive process while also ensuring they are focused. Introduce more books here and repeat familiar books – innumerable times.We had this reading routine with Lil D and it helped immensely. Her index finger was called the Magic finger and she enjoyed scrolling along with us whenever we read a book. These parenting tips / suggestions are based on our experience with Lil D and not necessarily the only way to go about.