by Virginia Lowe

Created on: March 05, 2007   Last Updated: April 25, 2007

Pleasure must come first aesthetic pleasure. Picture books are an art form involving both words and pictures. If you read the actual words while the baby or toddler looks at the pictures, you will be treating the work with joyous respect, as an art form.

Of course you can also play the "labeling" game "Where is the shoe?" or "What's this?" the questions getting more difficult as the baby's language develops. This is fun too, and we all do it naturally. But I want to make a case for actually reading the words.

It is certain that the baby won't understand many even most of them, but there is the sound of the loved voice, the vibrations of the reading, the warmth of the lap all pleasures for the baby. And remember, most of the pictures won't make sense at first either. But they will be interesting, arresting. Colorful, patterned. They will want to explore whether they are three dimensional or not. As soon as they can grasp, they will try to pick up an item illustrated. Soon they will have favourites. My daughter from six months always loved the yellow lion in Bruna's B is for Bear best as she showed by waving her arms enthusiastically when we came to it. Clearly she could not see it as a lion it is very stylised but she must have loved the bright yellow with strong black outline, and pointy shape of the mane.

The patterns of words will become recognisable too. A nursery rhyme book is a good idea as an early book. Soon the baby will recognise that the same picture appears every time that song is sung, so he/she associates the picture with the song - and with the words as well.

Stories are fun too - ones with not many words of course. If they have only a few words, you can keep them interested in the picture long enough to read them. Maybe point out the things in the picture as you read the words, which both helps to keep the baby's attention focussed, and keeps the page down.

Of course let the little one help you turn the pages, but do try to get the whole story read as early as possible. It is true that young children don't care what page they are on, but if you read the whole story they'll eventually understand that there is a beginning, a middle and an end. When they have this idea, they are ready to hear longer stories.

If you read the book's words they will learn new vocabulary. If you just play the "labelling game" they will only hear your familiar words. Beatrix Potter, for instance, does not compromise with her language. My daughter learned "Macintosh", "fortnight", "camomile tea", "elegant uncomfortable clothes", even "soporific" from Beatrix Potter at two. And she didn't really care what they meant. It was the pleasure of saying them, chanting them, rolling them around on her tongue. It was a genuine love of language.

This pleasure we deny children when we shorten a story or cut out the "hard words" when either the publisher does it in abridged versions, or we just talk about the story and pictures, rather than reading the words.

There are five parent-observer records of young children's responses to books in printed form. Look for "Books Before Five" (D White, 1954), "Prelude to Literacy: a preschool child's encounter with picture and story" (M and H Crago, 1983), "Cushla and her Books" (D Butler 1979), "The Braid of Literature: Children's worlds of reading" (SA Wolf and SB Heath, 1992) and "Stories, Pictures and Reality: Two children tell" (V Lowe 2007). You will find the children's responses fascinating and often surprising, just as those of your own children are, when they are given the opportunity.

Ply them with books, read the words, and never underestimate them.

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