Speech Corner – Book Sharing 1

Book Sharing 1

Book sharing is more than just reading a book to your child. It is an interaction between yourself and your child, where you both talk about the book.

The key to book sharing – you are both involved and having fun!

Books increase your child’s knowledge and understanding of the world and helps them to understand how books and words work. Book sharing is great for language development. It will support your child’s understanding of new words and their talking (using new words and sentences).

Tips to remember:

  • Let your child choose the book
  • Read it more than once
  • Make it a routine

Strategies for book sharing:

Make comments: Saying something about the book that is not just written in the text. You can comment on the pictures (e.g., “That is a huge brown spider!”), new words (e.g., “terrified… that means really scared!”) and thinking aloud (e.g., “I think the 3 little pigs feel worried because the wolf might eat them OR “I wonder what will happen next…”) 

Follow your child’s interest: Focus on what your child is interested in. You can do this by watching to see what they are looking at, pointing at, or talking about, and then make a comment or ask a question. (e.g., *child looking at a spider* “Look, a big brown spider! I wonder what the spider will do next?”).

Speech Pathology Team