Books Bring New Words to Young Children

October is National Book Month, an annual celebration of reading, writing, and literature.

It's also a good time to highlight that sharing books with young children is an important, everyday way that parents and caregivers can help them develop the language and early literacy skills they need to learn to read and be successful in school.

In addition to being able to decode letters and words, good readers have the vocabulary, fluency, and background knowledge to make meaning from what they read. Young children build these skills when their parents and caregivers talk, play, and read with them.

Reading books together, even before they can talk, is an easy and effective way to introduce new and unusual words that build a child’s vocabulary.

Everyday conversation is mostly made up of common words, often in incomplete sentences without adjectives or adverbs. Books bring new words to young children that, through repetition and meaningful context, are added to their vocabulary. And research shows that early vocabulary is directly related to later reading proficiency.

Sharing books with young children also helps build other important early literacy skills, including concepts of print, book handling, phonological awareness, and more.

Reading With Babies and Toddlers

These videos, developed by First Things First in partnership with Read On Arizona, offer helpful tips for reading with little ones.

First Things First is Arizona’s early childhood agency and a founding partner in Read On Arizona.