What’s Inside: The right Preschool Read Aloud books give your young learner so much! We list some favorites along with some methods to find your own favorites. Living books are a great addition to your homeschool day.
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Homeschooling methods: No formal lessons for preschoolers
Charlotte Mason advocated no formal lessons until age 6. But does that mean your child will not be learning before that?
Of course not!
Does that mean you will just let your kids roam about ala Lord of the Flies style?
Of course not!
Active children
If you have preschoolers, you know they are very active. You will be guiding them in all sorts of ways. Why did I suddenly get a picture in my head of the baby sitter chasing baby Jack-Jack as he’s flying around the house accidentally setting things on fire?
Sometimes, it is hard to keep up.
They say routines are important. One routine we loved was reading.
Reading Routines
We read aloud to our kids from baby-aged until well into the teen years. We had a before nap routine that included read-aloud books. And a bedtime routine with reading. Sometimes a lunch routine too. And in the car we listened to audio books. And we would go to story time at the library.
So LOTS of books.
They say two keys to being a great reader later is phonemic awareness and vocabulary. And you get both of these with TONS of reading aloud to your kids.
Remember, read good quality books (a.k.a. Living Books!) and lots of them! Read as much as possible. Early on, the rhyming kind of books help with phonological awareness and are a good step towards reading.
Where to find good read aloud books?
You may know that I am a big fan of Jim Trelease and his Read Aloud Handbook.
Other than that, here are some of our favorites, categorized by ages or stages.
Babies
Babies listen to anything. They are giant learning machines. They get fluent in a language in 2 years or so. Read them anything. Sing to them, read in other languages, whatever. You kind of have a trapped audience.
It’s a good time to practice your reading out loud. You can practice voices or accents or poetry. Go wild – your baby doesn’t understand the language yet, but will eventually. They love your voice. And maybe they will love your Yoda impersonation even if no one else does. If they have an older sibling, the older child can read to the baby too. Again, it’s good practice for your personal reading-out-loud skill.
Babies love being close and looking at everything. So lap reading is perfect. BUT. Babies are also learning by touch and taste. So take it from me, protect your books from chewing and tearing.
Here’s where board books come in.
Toddlers
As babies turn into toddlers, two things will change with your reading.
- Baby will now want his own book.
- Go to the thrift store and look for indestructible books. You won’t find any, of course, because they are destructible and some other toddler has already eaten the book you are looking for.
- Buy some good board books.
- Buy some good bathtub books.
- You will still read (non-board) books to your youngster, but you have to teach him “gentle” and how to be nice to books.
- Tip: Don’t leave your toddler alone with books within reach (like on a coffee table). And certainly don’t turn your back if magic markers AND books are available.
Favorite Toddler Read Alouds
I like the classics. Many classics I never had growing up, like Pat the Bunny. That’s a simple book with tactile activities on each page. I like how the book is small. And the little things you can do on each page help the kids learn to be gentle with books.
Another favorite was Goodnight Moon. The gentle words and repetition was always soothing. And we liked how the clock changes on each picture as it gets closer to dark.
We also loved the Sandra Boynton board books. Pajama Time was a hit in our house. The kids looked forward to the rhyming. They learned to read the word “Oops!” from Blue Hat, Green Hat.
- Tip: Your little genius is great with repetition. My kids “read” along with me out loud on some of these simple books. The books were memorized, sometimes after a single reading. But that’s not really reading. As long as it’s fun and a game to them, that keeps the read aloud enjoyable. Don’t pressure them to read early!
- Board books are also good for teaching kids how to turn pages. As their little dexterity improves, they can move on to turning paper pages. My guys would argue over who got to turn the page!
The Hungry Caterpillar and many other books by Eric Carle were thoroughly enjoyed. But we liked the actual book better than the board book.
Sometimes, publishers simplify a really good children’s book into a board book. I found that we liked the full stories better. This was the case with The Little Engine that Could and even Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. If you accidentally get the board book, let your toddler eat it* while you read to them a meatier book.
* I of course am not telling you to let your child eat books. Literally. But toddlers will chew or gnaw a bit on board books. Be sure to get nutritious ones.
Both of those last 2 books mentioned have a sing-song quality due to the selection of words and the repetition. We could chant parts of the book together. It’s like the prose had meter to it.
Building your Library
Most of these books are now in our permanent library. But to find these, we would go on library binges and test drive the book first. Or get books as gifts.
In general, we went to the library every week for 6-9 years (mostly) taking out 15-20 books at a time. I would look for Caldecott winners. And books that have stood the test of time.
And if we got a book home from the library that had great pictures but a lame story, you can totally make up the story if your child is not reading yet. “Oh look, here the bunny is getting in her car seat! Look at the steering wheel. And there’s the seat belt.” Or you can play, “What do you see?” with the non-reading child.
Preschoolers
As your child learns some self control, books can increase in complexity. Even if you have a mix of preschoolers and older, the preschoolers will still enjoy the more complex stories. We liked to read a wide variety.
The Winnie the Pooh series were adored. Start with When We Were Very Young, move on to Now We are Six, then on to the House at Pooh Corner.
Likewise, the Beatrix Potter collection is still on our shelf. Part of the beauty of these were the size of the books. Very good for little hands.
Both of these sets of books have another thing in common. The story is told, but the words-to-pictures ratio is quite high. This leaves a lot of room for imagination.
Imagination is another mental habit which is needed for becoming a self learner. It’s right up there with attention and observation. All of these basic habits for learning are good to practice with preschoolers.
But it’s still not formal lessons!
More on Young Books
I’ve listed just the earliest read aloud books here. But there are so many great living picture books! Any you aren’t confined to picture books. Allowing the children to imagine the story in their heads without pictures is a wonderful thing. You can try Poetry like A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson, or any of the Thornton Burgess stories. These will have some illustrations, but lots of words.
I can see that I have much to say about finding great books for kids. We’ll continue this in another post.
Keep on Learning
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