My Baby Loves to Read

Around the age of 10 months, Valerie started showing interest in books. When I flip through those one-object-one-word baby book, she will look at it, instead of grabbing the book and chew on the corners. So I thought it's a good time to start bed-time reading.

One of my friends highly recommended the Dr. Seuss series. And I started with the 'One Fish, Two Fish...' This book is perfect, cos it basically has a one liner to a picture. So you don't end up reading a very long paragraph with the baby staring at only one picture. She will lose interest that fast, I tell you...

At first, she will pay attention to only like one, two pages and then turn away and start playing with other things. But as I persisted on reading a few more pages every night, I could see her slowly paying more attention.

I also show her the association of real objects with her one-object-one-word book. Like I take her rubber duckie, put it in front of her and point to the book and say 'Duck-ie'. She stares at the toy and then at the book for a few moments, then as she sees the connection between the actual object and the picture book, she has a big smile on her face. It's like a revelation to her.

By about 13 months, when I turn on the night light mode, soft music playing on the background, she know it's bedtime. She will crawl to the stack of baby books, take the Dr Seuss book and put it on my lap to read. That's just so sweet! After reading the Dr Seuss book, we will spend some time going through her one-word book. Her favourite is 'ball.. ball...'. Anything round, is ball ball to her. She will point to the object and say 'ball.. ball...'.

Around 15 months, whenever I start with 'One fish.. two fish..', she will give a very big smile and giggle. I don't know what's so funny with that but she will do the same expression every night. And then when it's time to sleep, she will always whine and quickly grab any baby book and put it on my lap... It's her little protest of 'just one more book, mommy... please...'

So, up to now, she could identify and say a few words:
-Ball ball (obviously),
-Ish (which means fish, can't pronounce the f yet)
-Babble (which is apple)
-Da-ch (duckie)
-Bear bear (this is pretty accurate)

Oh.. we also have this animals book, although she can't speak the words, she can understand a lot more than you think. Say 'cow cow' and she will point to the cow. Say 'chicken leh.. where is chicken' and she will point to the chicken. This is her daddy's favourite time. Up to now, she can spot about 4 animals, cow, chicken, sheep, and horse.

Not bad for at 15 month old, eh?