Reading books for children (0 - 3 years old)

Mandy Seng from the National Library Board (NLB) recommends these books for infants and children up to 3 years old.

From birth to 1 year old
General traits: starts to babble and play with sounds, able to identify and is attracted to familiar objects and imitates action such as waving or peek-a-boo.

• Introduce books with rhythmic language, rhymes and songs as well as books that interlace with nursery rhymes or finger plays.
• Use board/plastic/cloth books with bright colours and with simple and clear pictures. Parents could start with black, white and red for the very young.
• Books with pictures of familiar objects, animals, food.



image courtesy of goodreads.com

• Books about daily life or family members or photos of babies.

Recommended titles

1. Where is baby? by Sally Rippin

2. Baby Faces Peekaboo by Dawn Sirett


For 1 – 3 years old

General traits: Utters first words and understands simple directions. Starts to babble long sentences, says one or more words and imitates familiar noises.  Is active and enjoys surprises.  Starts to identify family members, familiar objects and body parts. Enjoys turning pages of familiar books and pointing to favourite pictures and repeating familiar sounds/words.

• Use simple, repetitive story lines and pictures.
• Continue to use nursery rhymes and add on action songs
  ,
  
   that include movement of body parts
• Introduce simple concepts of numbers, sizes etc.
• Use toy books with simple activities like looking under the blanket, looking behind doors e.g. “Where’s Spot
  ”
   series.
• Books with few words on each page e.g. alphabet and concept books for naming of familiar objects or books that relate to familiar experiences or characters.
• Participative books with surprises e.g. lift the flap, pop-up, touch & feel and turn the wheel books.
• Books for bedtime, saying hello or goodbye.

Recommended titles

1. Round and Round the Garden by Moira Kemp

2. Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell

Check out your local library for these books.

Serangoon Public Library - a new resource

Residents in the North East region will now be able to enjoy a convenient access to learning resources with the opening of the new Serangoon Public Library (SRPL).

MP Lim Hwee Hua reading with children at SRPL

Located at the retail mall, nex, and the heart of a major transportation hub, the library aims to serve the informational and learning needs of the community by offering a wide selection of resources that include digital learning as well as quick and easy reads such as comics, graphic novels, and magazines.

Mrs Lim Hwee Hua, Minister in Prime 

Minister’s Office, Second Minister for Finance and Transport, and MP of Aljunied GRC officially opened this branch last Friday.

She remembers taking her 3 (now grown-up) kids to the library as part of their learning journey, and advices Asian parents to visit the library as it “is a wonderful place where you can find a lot of resources, and I’ll dare say resources beyond the means of any single family or household, but maybe a lot of parents are not aware of it. I would really encourage parents, from the time the kids are as young as babies, to come and take a look and see how they can plan the kids’ learning journey.”

With regards to reading to young children, Mrs Lim said that the way the library has done is very interesting.  It is “not purely just reading, which is very monotonous for young children, whose attention span is not very long,” she explains. “They have weaved in historical themes with fun things to do, so there are more points of association for the kids to ensure the learning is more fun and varied.”

Highlights of Serangoon Public Library

Digital Book Display

In addition to being a great learning space, SPRL is the first public library in Singapore to dedicate an area for gaming which will feature interactive game stations for experiential learning opportunities.

Complementing traditional book-based learning, gaming allows users a more interactive and experiential approach to learning.  The Digital Media Zone includes:

• 6 multimedia stations
• Gaming area with 4 game stations
• AV collections
• Digital book display
• Exhibition space

This article first appeared in theAsianparent.com