Ian and Books

With all the conflicting advice out there on every aspect of baby-rearing, everyone seems to agree that reading to your child is important. It doesn't matter what you read, but hearing the rhythm and variety of words provides great benefits. Ian has never been into books. He would pull on them and chew on them when he could move him hands and then try to get away once he could move. It is a little disappointing that when he would finally sit with a book, he had no interest in the story. He wants to know the names of objects. The books he will listen to are very simple like: Dr. Seuss' sABC, Dr Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham and Margaret Wise-Brown's Goodnight Moon. Other than that, he prefers books with pictures like those in the Priddy Book Series. The two story books he always picks out are Watty Piper's The Little Engine That Could and Mark Teague's Dear Mrs. La Rue. I bought a Little Engine That Could book to go along with the Little Engine That Could Wooden Train Set from Craftsbury Kids. He likes to look at the pictures and say,"My train!" As for the other book, my grandmother bought it at Kohl's for him along with a plush version of the dog that is the main character. He loves that dog and sleeps with it every night. He will only listen to part of the story in that book, though.

I am choosing to go with his personality so that I don't make story time stressful. As he gets older and his vocabulary increases, he will want to hear the stories, or maybe the content of non-fiction books in a subject that he is interested in, but right now, it is not for him. He likes Curt to read him books when Curt gets home from work, so that is what they usually do. Making reading a part of the bed time routine is a good idea as well.