Unless you have a superbaby, your baby can’t read — so books for babies may seem like a silly concept.
Why not just talk to your baby? Or tell him or her stories about your day? If babies can’t understand the letters on the page, does reading books matter?
Educators say it’s important to recognize that early literacy doesn’t just mean reading words on a page — it means building positive interactions and associations with books and allowing related skills to unfold naturally, according to American non-profit organization Zero to Three: The National Centre for Infants, Toddlers and Families.
Plus, you can always add animation and conversation to your reading session.
“As much as we think babies can’t take in information, their brains are little sponges,” says public-health nurse Rhonda Wylie. “We tell parents to make the expressions, make the sounds and have that face-to-face interaction.”
Here are some of the ways you’re helping your baby develop:
Relationship building
One of the main benefits of reading to your baby doesn’t actually have to do with literacy; it’s about building a relationship with your child.
“It’s a way of sharing time with your child,” said GVPL CEO Maureen Sawa.
Diana Elliott, provincial adviser for aboriginal infant-development programs, said it’s important to bond with your baby through an activity that’s also helping them learn.
“Infants can’t speak, but they can listen, see and feel,” she said.
Language development
“It’s highly recommended to read, sing and talk to your baby right from birth,” said Tracy Kendrick, co-ordinator of children’s and teen services for the GVPL. “The difference with a book is that even from a young age — even as a newborn — they’re being exposed to a different type of language.”
Babies who were read to regularly beginning at six months of age had a 40 per cent increase in receptive vocabulary (the number of words they understood, even if they couldn’t use them in a sentence) by the time they were 18 months old, according a study by the Rhode Island Hospital’s Child Development Center. In contrast, babies who were not read to had only a 16 per cent increase in receptive vocabulary.
And while children’s books are often extremely simple, they tend to include words infants typically wouldn’t hear on a regular basis. Children’s books contain three more “rare” words on average than everyday conversation between parent and child, according to a 1988 study in the Journal of Child Language.
“Reading to babies makes a huge difference,” Elliott said. “We always tell young parents that even if they don’t understand yet, it’s like their babies have little filing cabinets in their brain. They file those little words and they eventually learn what those words mean.”
Her recommendation is the same for reading to babies as it is for introducing them to multiple languages: “The earlier, the better.”
Brain development
Most of the brain’s development happens in the first 18 months of life, Elliott said.
Babies are born with 100 billion neurons, or brain cells, according to the Association for Library Services to Children. Trillions of connections are built between those cells in the first years of life through sensory experiences: seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and tasting. Those connections prime babies’ brains for learning.
One major helper in building those connections is serotonin, the neurotransmitter that contributes to feelings of well-being and happiness. Positive activities like reading together can help encourage the baby’s production of serotonin.
“When a child feels loved, cared for, responded to, it naturally elevates the levels of serotonin in the brain,” the Association for Library Services to Children website says.
Print awareness
There are other things going on, as the wheels in a child’s mind turn. Print awareness is one of them, according to the Association for Library Services to Children. That means your infant is beginning to understand how books work — and that the pictures and words represent real things. Print awareness is a precursor for reading.