When should you start reading fairy tales to your child? Why is early development dangerous and when can a child be taught to read? What and how to read

Many mothers wonder at what age they should start reading fairy tales and books to their children. Someone will say that not earlier than a year, but better than two, because before that the baby will understand little. I am sure that it is necessary to read from the moment the child begins to hear, and this is the 16-17th week of pregnancy!

“Reading is the best teaching!” A.S. Pushkin

At what age should children start reading fairy tales?

1. Pregnancy

I started reading fairy tales to my daughter when she was still in her tummy. The baby really likes to listen to his mother's voice. But I couldn’t psychologically talk to my tummy, so I read it to him 🙂 It doesn’t matter at all what book you choose, you can also take your favorite novel.

2. Newborn

A baby from a month can already be shown beautiful pictures. Better, for starters, black and white. At 1-2 months old, my daughter looked at pictures with pleasure and listened to fairy tales and poems. Basically, we spent all the time of her wakefulness with books. We read Agniya Barto and the Adventures of Pinocchio. We both enjoyed it.

It is important to choose books with large colorful pictures, but not a lot of text on the page. Will do.

3. From 5 months to 1.5 years

This age of the child for me was the most difficult in terms of reading. She began touching the books, tearing them out of her hands, turning the pages and frequently tearing them. Then I found the only way out - I bought cardboard books! We read and chewed on them. 🙂

4. 1.5 to 3 years

What have I achieved?

At 2 years old, my daughter was already telling fairy tales on her own! I am sure that this is due to the fact that we read a lot with her from birth.

Many zealots of reading argue that it is possible to read to a child from the moment of birth, and it is even better to start this noble work before birth. In the last months of pregnancy, you sit, stroke your tummy and read some Winnie the Pooh. And then, as we are told, a born baby will certainly “recognize” this book as a familiar one.
I have nothing against. I am for it". Future mother it is very useful to read talented children's books, especially such as "Winnie the Pooh", because they have all the "magic" qualities of art, and even tune in to the child, subtly and unobtrusively talk about the features of his worldview.
I even believe that it is generally useful for a woman to read - not only during pregnancy, but also without it. A “reading mother”, moreover, is an important circumstance for the appearance of a reading child in the future. As for the baby, then he “recognizes” the text read to him in the womb or meets him “for new ones”, is not very significant. It is essential to meet.
But as a result, it turns out that the recommendation “start reading before birth” is devoid of any practical meaning, because it does not answer the question of when to start showing the child books, at what age. And how to do it?

A “reading mother” is an important circumstance for the appearance of a reading child in the future.

Let's try to figure it out.
What is a book? First of all, it's a subject. Unlike a stone or a stick, this is a man-made object, created for certain, specifically human needs. Like a pot is made to cook in, a comb is to comb your hair, a chair is to sit on it, a spoon is to eat. Accordingly, there are special rules for the use of this item.
The subject "book" is addressed to our imagination. In addition to the act of turning the pages, it also requires us to perform other, invisible, internal actions.

A book is a special object addressed to our imagination.

These two circumstances - the specific "objectivity" of the book and the child's ability to perceive it - determine the time of the book start for the smallest.

* * *
Since a book is a “specific subject,” it means that a child will be able to perceive its specifics when he reaches a certain degree of mental maturity. Surrounding objects begin to interest the baby quite early - when he begins to reach for them with his hands. But for some time (that which is called early childhood), the main goal of such interest is to perform some action on the object: put it in the mouth, throw it out of the arena, make it make some kind of sound. An eight-month-old, one-year-old, and one-and-a-half-year-old child is concerned not so much with the specific purpose of objects as with their properties, which manifest themselves in response to an action.
In other words, if you put a pan with a lid in front of the child, he will be happy to remove it and put it back in place with noise. But this manipulation of the lid does not mean that the child "comprehends" the true purpose of the pan. IN this moment he comprehends the principle of "in-out". Like the donkey Eeyore, who received an empty honey pot as a gift. If you put a book in front of a child of the same age - large, beautiful, with strong cardboard pages, he will most likely find that the pages can be turned. This activity - turning the pages - will become the main thing. But it still has little to do with the perception of the beautiful, no matter how much we convince ourselves that the whole point is precisely in the magic of the beautiful. The point is in thick cardboard and in the volume of the object. Turning pages for a child of a certain age is not much different from manipulating the lid of a pot. There is nothing wrong with that. This is useful in its own way - provided that the book is not torn. Or if it doesn’t happen the way one mother does: on the advice of a progressive friend, she bought an expensive fashionable book for her eight-month-old son, and he gnaws at it.
So he is within his rights! Explores the world in the ways available to him.

Turning the pages of a book for a child early age differs little from manipulating the lid of the pan.

The first signs that it is “time” to show the baby books may be his attempts to use other items for their intended purpose. For example, carry a comb through your hair (and not just count the teeth that have appeared with it). Or independently bring a spoon to your mouth, use a cup. Put on different hats on the head - one's own and others', but on the head. This is a signal that the book can be perceived in its specific purpose - as an object for a special action.

The first signs that it is time to show the baby books may be his attempts to use other items for their intended purpose.

But the baby himself, without an adult, cannot yet perform this specific action. Leaving a small child alone with a book (even if it is made of thick cardboard) means creating conditions for turning the book into an object of arbitrary manipulation, putting it on a par with a saucepan or cubes.
In its true purpose, the book appears for the child only when he communicates about it with an adult.
- Look, Ksyushenka, who is this drawn here? This is a cat. Do you see what a cat is? Oh you, kitty-kitty, kitty, gray pubis. Come, kitty, spend the night, pump our Ksyushenka (the word "baby" is very correctly replaced by the name of the baby). See what the cat is doing? The cradle is rocking. Who is in the cradle? Ksyushechka. Here she is, my Ksyushechka. How do I download it? Like this…

In its true purpose, the book appears for the child only when he communicates about it with an adult.

Can this be called reading? pure form? It's more of a parental "sacrifice" over the book.
Speech improvisation, now and then leaving the written text, constantly appealing to the baby, to his experience, to interaction with him. One wonderful mom, who started showing her daughter books very early, described the process as follows: “How do we read? That's how. Open the book, look at the picture. I'm talking about this picture. I show where someone is, what is called, what they are doing. And Ksyusha shows me where someone is. She remembers well what is drawn here, and she really likes to look at the pictures and listen to me tell something at this time. But when I start to read what is written, she stops me. She likes to listen to me invent something of my own.”
This behavior is typical for children who are not yet speaking or who are just starting to speak. It is due to the laws of speech development of the child.
Speech - the most important achievement of the baby and his most important life tool - grows out of communication with an adult, who in psychology is called a "close adult". In order for a baby to speak by the age of one and a half, he must hear human speech from birth. And not speech at all, not background speech, but the speech of a close adult, addressed personally to him.

In order for a baby to speak by the age of one and a half, he must hear human speech addressed personally to him from birth.

Observations of babies in baby houses lead to sad conclusions: “technical speech” does not have any effect on the development of babies. The tape recorder can work twenty-four hours a day - "sing" lullabies and tell nursery rhymes. This will in no way move unmarried children into speech development. Even constantly talking nannies can change very little in a situation. There are too few of them for such a number of pupils. They too rarely address their words to a particular child. So orphans experience a lack of communication in general, and a lack of verbal communication in particular. This is one of the most important reasons why such children lag behind their peers in development. Doctor of Psychological Sciences Elena Smirnova in her book "Crawlers and Walkers" writes that for young children (these are children aged from one to three), when they, for example, are in kindergarten, it is completely useless to address the word "children". They simply “do not hear”, do not consider such a “collective” appeal to themselves. Each must be called by name.
Book speech is a generalized appeal. After all, it was not written for this particular child. To perceive it, the child must learn to “hear” the word “children”. This usually occurs between two and three years of age. The ability to classify oneself as part of the “children” group is closely related to the awakening of individual self-consciousness (in order to classify oneself, one must first learn to distinguish oneself). We learn that it has “awakened” by the appearance of the pronoun “I” in the baby’s speech, which, as a rule, marks the most important event - the “crisis of three years”. It is clear that the mark "three" is rather conditional. Some children experience a crisis six months earlier, others six months later. From the point of view of reading, the main thing is the emergence in the child of a new sense of self, associated with the "I".
With the advent of "I" begins new stage socialization, i.e. it is possible to expand the circle of communication, it is possible to establish new relationships with a variety of people - not only with close adults. The expanding circle of contacts, of course, includes such “interlocutors” as the authors of children's books. This is the moment that marks the beginning of a new, "bookish" period - when the baby's ability to perceive texts increases dramatically, the number of texts available for understanding increases greatly.
But we begin to read to the baby much earlier, focusing on the speech capabilities of the child.

With the advent of the “I”, the baby’s ability to perceive texts increases dramatically.

As soon as the baby begins to speak in sentences (albeit short ones) and clothe his desires in words, he can no longer only participate in the “sacrifice” over the book, but also listen to the “hard”, given book text. The ability to perceive a book text in each child develops at its own pace, as does his speech.
But this ability grows out of verbal communication with a close adult, from communication around a book, built on verbal improvisation. How less baby, the more adequate for him is verbal communication in the form of storytelling.
So it is necessary to "kamlat" over books.

Reading fairy tales for children is a familiar procedure for every parent. To calm the child, many mothers and fathers resort to this method, choosing exciting children's books with various pictures and interesting stories. But not everyone knows at what age it is not only possible, but also necessary, to read fairy tales to a child.

In addition, it is important to correctly select special books that must fully correspond to the development of the baby. This will help him understand what he read and extract the main meaning from it.

How do you know what to read to your child?

You can read books to your child from an early age. Psychologists say that in the future it will be much easier for such children to communicate with their peers, they will easily make new acquaintances and speak faster than other children.

You can start reading books from the moment the baby has learned to focus his attention on certain objects. As a result, parents can already gradually begin to show the baby bright and simple pictures. This is the so-called preparatory process before reading fairy tales and other books. First of all, it is important to establish emotional contact between mother and baby. When showing pictures, be sure to say what is shown on them. Thus, the child will constantly hear the voice of his mother, and try to repeat what he heard.

You need to read books from an early age, seating the baby on your lap. This is a psychological contact, during which the child learns to trust his parents, hears their voice, tries to contact with mom and dad.

In this case, the rule works: the more often a child reads books, the faster he will be able to speak. After all, constant reading is one of the important elements in the development of children's speech. The next stage of regular reading is replenishment of the child's passive vocabulary, expanding his horizons. The kid tries to visualize what he heard, his imagination and fantasy begin to work, they note the active development of memory. It is recommended to read fairy tales not only before going to bed, but also throughout the day - several times a day.

And don't force your child to listen to you. You need to choose a time when the baby is not busy with anything and rests after the game. The process of reading should not cause negative emotions in children.

Choosing a book by age

Answering the question, at what age can a child read, psychologists say: the sooner the better. In the process of reading to babies under 1 year old, you need to remember some important nuances:

• First of all, you need to show the baby pictures - these should be bright images on which one or two characters are drawn (do not overload the brain of a small child too much).
• At this age, parents can use special toy books, which involve constant exposure of the baby to the book. Thus, the child will be directly involved in the reading process.
• Books with appropriate flaps, different buttons and other moving parts are considered the ideal solution. Kids love touching the rough pages, pulling on the string, touching the fluffy inserts and more.

However, do not overdo it and do not confuse the usual game process with the main task - to teach the baby to listen. One of the most important tasks that parents face is to do everything possible so that the child is interested in human speech, and not just pictures. As they grow up, children begin to understand what they hear. Over time, the baby will understand and understand the meaning of the new information.

Therefore, it is worth choosing books with a small amount of special effects so that it does not turn into a banal game. It will take some time for the baby to look at the picture and focus on its elements.

For children under one year old, you can buy sensory books - these are soft and educational books that are not without a storyline. Fairy tales “work” very well, where there are a minimum of text blocks and a lot of illustrations that can be used to tell a story. Parents have the opportunity to introduce their child to small verses - as a rule, these are light quatrains.

For older children - from 1.5 years old, you can master special children's encyclopedias, where the author raises various interesting topics. First of all, the baby begins to recognize nouns, over time he learns verbs. Therefore, closer to two years, you can safely compose short sentences in which there are only 2-3 words.

But while the baby has not yet learned to talk, the parents speak for him. They can easily interpret any story in their own way.

From 1.5 years to 3 years - you can safely proceed to reading short stories about different animals, to read longer rhymes and not to refuse fascinating fairy tales. To this list, you need to add books with pictures, according to which the baby can “read” or come up with a story on his own.

Reading fairy tales with children

We read fairy tales to children at least twice a day - before daytime and evening sleep. While reading, it is important to have a dialogue with your child - ask him again about what you read, discuss certain situations that happened in the story. Together pronounce the actions of the heroes (this or that character did well or badly).

If the baby refuses to read a certain book together, it is necessary to resort to an alternative - let him or she independently choose a book that can be read at the moment. When a child takes a book on his own and asks his mother or father to read with him, in no case should he be refused.

Reading together with a child helps to establish a connection between a daughter / son, mom and dad. This is necessary for further mutual understanding of the parties. The child will feel warmth, family comfort and trust.

How to read fairy tales to a child

It is important to always listen to your child and take into account his mood: if the baby flatly refuses to listen to any book today, you need to take into account his wishes. A little time will pass, and he himself will offer to read with mom and dad.

Every mother reads to her beloved baby. Whether it's fairy tales, children's books, or just a glossy magazine - the baby likes to listen to everything. The main thing for him is not so much the content of what he heard, but his mother's favorite voice addressed to him with reading.

Everyone has their own approach, but I will share mine with you.

Gleb's books

I started reading Gleb when I was still pregnant. It seems that he liked it - actively pushed and hit on the kidneys. I tried to read everything I read in those months aloud. From children's books I read only my favorite Winnie the Pooh, and everything else that interested me. Thus, my child is familiar with the basics of quantum mechanics, baking in an air grill and the masterpieces of Francoise Sagan.

Books were given to us by relatives and friends, sometimes I bought them myself. Thus, at the moment, we have a good collection - Gleb already has a whole bookshelf of his own. There are also educational books for children, and fairy tales, and educational materials. There are also my children's books, which my mother carefully preserved, as well as soft plush books and rubberized bathing books.

Gleb books like very much . Firstly: you can gnaw, suck and lick them, secondly: you can have fun playing with them - put one book on top of another, collect pyramids from them, thirdly: mom, looking at them, begins to tell something cheerfully (this, of course, is not as interesting as the previous two virtues of books, but also not bad). Gleb loves to listen to my performance by Korney Chukovsky (“Telephone”, “Moydodyr” and “Cockroach”) and Pushkin (collection of fairy tales) - my son loves the classics. I think that such love is due to the rhythm of the verses, since he hardly understands the content yet.

Recently in the collection appeared "Mitten", "Ugly Duckling" and "Cat's House", donated by my grandmother. There are very wonderful bright illustrations that attract children's attention completely and permanently.

Find a hero

Somehow, while reading another book, it occurred to me idea of ​​a new educational game for son. We named her "find a hero" . Its essence, as you may have guessed by the name, is to find a certain hero of the book. It works like this: we show the kid on the cover, for example, in a book about the ugly duckling, the main character - the duckling itself, and then ask the kid to find the duckling on other pages.

It is advisable to choose such a hero that he meets on every page of the book, then the search process turns out to be more interesting. Thanks to this game, we, firstly: learn to turn the pages on our own (we must continue to find the duckling), secondly: we develop observation skills (we are looking for the duckling among the other heroes), thirdly: we learn new words (the word “duckling” itself, and also in parallel - the names of all the other heroes with whom the son, at first, confuses the duckling).

The game is very funny and developing, the son is completely delighted when, finally, the cherished duckling or kitten is found. It can be combined with parallel reading of a book, then auditory perception is also involved. In general, this game has a huge field for improvement.

Finally

To read or not to read to a child? From my experience - definitely read! This is a great pastime for both the child and his parents, fun and useful. And it does not matter when to start reading to your child: even during pregnancy, or when the baby is one year old. It is important for mom and dad to have attention and have fun together, which reading can easily provide. There is nothing better for a child than parental love and caress! Read for health!

Happy reading and have fun!

Many zealots of reading argue that it is possible to read to a child from the moment of birth, and it is even better to start this noble work before birth. In the last months of pregnancy, you sit, stroke your tummy and read some Winnie the Pooh. And then, as we are told, a born baby will certainly “recognize” this book as a familiar one.
I have nothing against. I am for it". It is very useful for a future mother to read talented children's books, especially such as "Winnie the Pooh", because they have all the "magic" qualities of art, and even tune in to the child, subtly and unobtrusively talk about the peculiarities of his worldview.
I even believe that it is generally useful for a woman to read - not only during pregnancy, but also without it. A “reading mother”, moreover, is an important circumstance for the appearance of a reading child in the future. As for the baby, then he “recognizes” the text read to him in the womb or meets him “for new ones”, is not very significant. It is essential to meet.
But as a result, it turns out that the recommendation “start reading before birth” is devoid of any practical meaning, because it does not answer the question of when to start showing the child books, at what age. And how to do it?

A "reading mother" is an important circumstance for the appearance of a reading child in the future.

Let's try to figure it out.
What is a book? First of all, it's a subject. Unlike a stone or a stick, this is a man-made object, created for certain, specifically human needs. As a pot is made to cook in it, a comb - to comb your hair, a chair - to sit on it, a spoon - to eat. Accordingly, there are special rules for the use of this item.
The subject "book" is addressed to our imagination. In addition to the act of turning the pages, it also requires us to perform other, invisible, internal actions.

A book is a special subject addressed to our imagination.

These two circumstances - the specific "objectivity" of the book and the child's ability to perceive it - determine the time of the book start for the smallest.

* * *
Since a book is a “specific subject,” it means that a child will be able to perceive its specificity when it reaches a certain degree of mental maturity. Surrounding objects begin to interest the baby quite early - when he begins to reach for them with his hands. But for some time (that which is called early childhood), the main goal of such interest is to perform some action on the object: put it in the mouth, throw it out of the arena, make it make some kind of sound. An eight-month-old, one-year-old, and one-and-a-half-year-old child is concerned not so much with the specific purpose of objects as with their properties, which manifest themselves in response to an action.
In other words, if you put a pan with a lid in front of the child, he will be happy to remove it and put it back in place with noise. But this manipulation of the lid does not mean that the child "comprehends" the true purpose of the pan. At the moment he comprehends the principle of "in-out". Like the donkey Eeyore, who received an empty honey pot as a gift. If you put a book in front of a child of the same age - large, beautiful, with strong cardboard pages, he will most likely find that the pages can be turned. This activity - turning the pages - will become the main thing. But it still has little to do with the perception of the beautiful, no matter how much we convince ourselves that the whole point is precisely in the magic of the beautiful. The point is in thick cardboard and in the volume of the object. Turning pages for a child of a certain age is not much different from manipulating the lid of a pot. There is nothing wrong with that. This is useful in its own way - provided that the book is not torn. Or if it doesn’t happen the way one mother does: on the advice of a progressive friend, she bought an expensive fashionable book for her eight-month-old son, and he gnaws at it.
So he is within his rights! Explores the world around him in ways available to him.

Turning the pages of a book for a young child is little different from manipulating the lid of a pot.

The first signs that it is “time” to show the baby books may be his attempts to use other items for their intended purpose. For example, carry a comb through your hair (and not just count the teeth that have appeared with it). Or independently bring a spoon to your mouth, use a cup. To put on different headdresses on the head - one's own and others', but on the head. This is a signal that the book can also be perceived in its specific purpose - as an object for a special action.

The first signs that it is time to show the baby books may be his attempts to use other items for their intended purpose.

But the baby himself, without an adult, cannot yet perform this specific action. Leaving a small child alone with a book (even if it is made of thick cardboard) means creating conditions for turning the book into an object of arbitrary manipulation, putting it on a par with a saucepan or cubes.
- Look, Ksyushenka, who is this drawn here? This is a cat. Do you see what a cat is? Oh you, kitty-kitty, kitty, gray pubis. Come, kitty, spend the night, pump our Ksyushenka (the word "baby" is very correctly replaced by the name of the baby). See what the cat is doing? The cradle is rocking. Who is in the cradle? Ksyushechka. Here she is, my Ksyushechka. How do I download it? Like this…

In its true purpose, the book appears for the child only when he communicates about it with an adult.

Can this be called pure reading? It's more of a parental "sacrifice" over the book.
Speech improvisation, now and then leaving the written text, constantly appealing to the baby, to his experience, to interaction with him. One wonderful mother, who very early began to show her daughter books, described this process as follows: “How do we read? That's how. Open the book, look at the picture. I'm talking about this picture. I show where someone is, what is called, what they are doing. And Ksyusha shows me where someone is. She remembers well what is drawn here, and she really likes to look at the pictures and listen to me tell something at this time. But when I start to read what is written, she stops me. She likes to listen to me invent something of my own.”
This behavior is typical for children who are not yet speaking or who are just starting to speak. It is due to the laws of speech development of the child.
Speech - the most important achievement of the baby and his most important life tool - grows out of communication with an adult, who in psychology is called a "close adult". In order for a baby to speak by the age of one and a half, he must hear human speech from birth. And not speech at all, not background speech, but the speech of a close adult, addressed personally to him.

In order for a baby to speak by the age of one and a half, he must hear human speech addressed personally to him from birth.

Observations of babies in baby houses lead to sad conclusions: “technical speech” does not have any effect on the development of babies. The tape recorder can work twenty-four hours a day - "sing" lullabies and tell nursery rhymes. This will not advance unfamily children in speech development. Even constantly talking nannies can change very little in a situation. There are too few of them for such a number of pupils. They too rarely address their words to a particular child. So orphans experience a lack of communication in general, and a lack of verbal communication in particular. This is one of the most important reasons why such children lag behind their peers in development. Elena Smirnova, Doctor of Psychology, writes in her book “Toddlers and Walkers” that it is completely useless to address young children (these are children aged from one to three), when they are in kindergarten, for example, with the word “children”. They simply “do not hear”, do not consider such a “collective” appeal to themselves. Each must be called by name.
Book speech is a generalized appeal. After all, it was not written for this particular child. To perceive it, the child must learn to “hear” the word “children”. This usually occurs between two and three years of age. The ability to classify oneself as part of the “children” group is closely related to the awakening of individual self-consciousness (in order to classify oneself, one must first learn to distinguish oneself). We learn that it has “awakened” by the appearance of the pronoun “I” in the baby’s speech, which, as a rule, marks the most important event - the “crisis of three years”. It is clear that the mark "three" is rather conditional. Some children experience a crisis six months earlier, others six months later. From the point of view of reading, the main thing is the appearance in the child of a new sense of self, associated with the "I".
With the advent of the “I”, a new stage of socialization begins, i.e. it is possible to expand the circle of communication, it is possible to establish new relationships with a variety of people - not only with close adults. The expanding circle of contacts, of course, includes such “interlocutors” as the authors of children's books. This is the moment that marks the beginning of a new, "book" period - when the baby's ability to perceive texts increases dramatically, the number of texts available for understanding increases greatly.
But we begin to read to the baby much earlier, focusing on the speech capabilities of the child.

With the advent of the “I”, the baby’s ability to perceive texts increases dramatically.

As soon as the baby begins to speak in sentences (albeit short ones) and clothe his desires in words, he can no longer only participate in the “sacrifice” over the book, but also listen to the “hard”, given book text. The ability to perceive a book text in each child develops at its own pace, as does his speech.
But this ability grows out of verbal communication with a close adult, from communication around a book, built on verbal improvisation. The smaller the child, the more adequate for him is verbal communication in the form of storytelling.
So it is necessary to "kamlat" over books.

Marina Aromshtam