The joy of reading

Both Satish and I love reading and we enjoy spending time at a bookshop, library, or simply reading (or re-reading) a book at home whenever we can. With Nidhi around we hardly get to do much of this and our individual reading time has gone down tremendously. On the flip side we now spend a lot of time reading together with Nidhi and enjoying the experience of savoring a book with her.

When Nidhi was about 9-10 months old we got her a cloth book - it had different textures, made some mild noise when the pages rubbed with each other and so on. It was really a toy for her - she would put it in her mouth, shake it, etc. When she would be sitting, we would sit with her and turn the pages and show her the pictures of the animals and just say the name or read the text as a song. If she wanted to stop at a page and explore it we would let her do that and then move on or just stop if it felt like she was ready to play with it on her own. At no point then or now do we read with a motive to "finish" the story or to teach her something. Over time she figured how to turn the pages of the cloth book. Around the time she turned one we also got a few other books (simple picture books like that of Eric Carle, books by Tulika Publishers, some by Dr. Suess, etc). Many of these related to every day life or to the animals around us, or had a rhyme to the text. As we read them we would not only focus on the text but also the visuals and explore the small details on each page. Sometimes we would point out something and at other times she would point something out to us that none of us had noticed earlier.

Reading books has become a pleasurable and fun activity. We now have the books on a shelf that she can reach out to easily. Often she will pick a book, bring it to us asking us to read it. Sometimes we would tell her to pick a book that we want or ask her to choose a book she wants us to read. We continue reading like this for a while until she decides to do something else. We never read with the intention of "teaching her something from the book." It is for the sheer joy of reading that we read. Nidhi picks up books on her own, looks at them, talks as if reading them and enjoys them for what opportunities they offer to her to make sense of life.

Our neighbors tell us that their children do not want to read books with them but are quite happy reading books with us (either me or satish). I think a huge part of developing a early reading habit is to really read with children for the pleasure it gives. Learning happens on the way!

Often we are just reading a simple story for her - either while eating, at bed time, while traveling and so on. At other times we are looking at the details in the visuals. Sometimes we are discussing the story while we are traveling or experiencing something new - making connections with what we have already read. Each book has been read a gazillion times and sometimes we even create our own story based on the visuals in the book! Sometimes a book will go into the background for a while and emerge back into the scene to be read and re-read after a few days. At other times a new book that we think she is not interested in will become a favorite.

Oh yes - the most important issue of handling books. Board books and cloth books are best at an early age until they begin learn to hold books and turn the pages. There are going to be a few tearing episodes however careful we are. They are in the process of learning and feeling the material. So we have to be prepared to salvage pages with tape and adhesive. I also try to intervene early on if it looks like Nidhi is using the book as a toy by saying "alright, looks like we are done reading. Now lets do something else." And usually at that time she is ready to do something else. Or if she is interested in continuing to read then I will tell her to handle the book gently and carefully and show her how (again and again and again just like anything else).

I have not said anything so far about selecting books, but it is an equally important aspect of this process. A few things that I keep in mind when getting books are - rich visuals, simple text that connects to everyday life (some new stuff is okay, but not everything is the book should be completely unknown and abstract), and the story (is it too complex for her age). After all this, letting Nidhi guide us in this journey of reading has been important. If she wants to read a book we read it, if she does not want to read a book we just leave it around until she decides to pick it up. Nidhi sometimes picks up books that we are reading, magazine, newspapers and want to be read! And we do that. Well we show her the pictures, or just read a line and she will be satisfied and move on realizing that this is probably not very interesting :)