Since the day Lachlan arrived home from the hospital, I immersed him in books. I remember visitors coming to the house to meet our new bub for the first time and laughing when they saw I had board books out already. They smiled and said, "starting early are we?" The answer was, "Of course!"
Children learn to love books if you read to them from an early age. Obviously, you don't have to start your bub out on the great works of Shakespeare, simple board books with contrasting colours is what fascinates them the most when they are newborns. Lachlan was enthralled by the book, Flip-a-Face, Colors. This simple book has very basic shapes of children faces with simple terms such as, 'Hair' on the left side and 'No Hair' on the contrasting page. The picture only consists of a few colours as to not over stimulate and to make it easier to see various contrasts on the pages. After sitting down and reading this to Lachlan everyday, he began to get excited when ever I would take the book out. He displayed his enthusiasm by smiling, waving his arms up and down and eventually giggling.
Books continue to be an important part of his daily routine. When he wakes up in the morning at 6 AM and lies in our bed (while my husband and I try to get an extra hour of shut eye) he plays with a cloth book and giggles and squeals. There are also several cloth books out for him to explore during his play time on the floor and he even has a few bath books that he likes to read while mom gives him a scrub-a-dub-dub. The evening always ends with the reading of three books which is a great way to wind down before he goes to bed.
In adherence to principles of Dr. Maria Montessori, it is also important to allow children to explore objects on their own terms. Often we are eager to read a story and only allow babies to touch the pages for a moment and then move their tiny hands out of the way so that we can flip to the next page. I used to do that when Lachlan was a newborn, but now that he has become more active and his independence is beginning to emerge, I have enjoyed sitting back and watching to see what he will do with the books. One day when he was about five months old, my husband and I were reading him a story and we began to notice that he was trying to flip the page. At first we thought it was a fluke, but he constantly reached for the right side of the book and pulled the page to the left. It ended up becoming fixation for him. As soon as he turned one page he immediately grabbed the next boarded page and did the same thing. At that moment, this experience was more beneficial than listening to me read words from the page. He had completely tuned out the rest of the world and was solely focused on this task. As Montessori stated, this repetitiveness is very important to children when it comes to exploring their environment and figuring out how the world around them works.
Currently, Lachlan is finding joy from touch-and-feel books. Our book time routine before bed has become a longer process as he likes to take several minutes exploring each page. I am fascinated as I watch him crinkle flaps, fold inserts of pages and daintily reach his little hand to brush soft textures. As I write this he is pulling a little monkey's tail in one of his jungle books. So I suppose I better go join in his fun monkey business adventure!
Lachlan's Top Book Picks (0-6 months)
Flip-a-Face Books
You're Not My...(series)
Lamaze Cloth Books
Taggies Books
Hello? Hello? (cloth telephone book)
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