Infant Development towards Reading

0 to 3 months

• Begin to be interested in what is going on around them and to have some control of head movement

• Like to look at patterns, instead of solid colours, and prefer sharp contrast

• Enjoy someone smiling at them and talking to them

• Can produce sounds and begin to coo

• Books made of stiff cardboard or soft vinyl with simple large pictures or designs set against a contrasting background are best

4 to 6 months

• Cooing is well established

• Begin to experiment with sounds

• Become able to reach and grasp, and begin to sit up

• Books are something to explore with mouth and hands, so cardboard and vinyl are best

• Express great interest in nursery rhymes and when sung to

7 to 9 months

• Very busy exploring objects with their hands

• Begin to crawl and explore the environment

• Babbling (syllable repetition, eg. ba-ba-ba) becomes part of the repertoire

• Understand much of what is said to them

• Can turn pages in board books

• Paper is something to crumple and tear and taste, so keep books with paper pages until later

• Can point to objects on a page and enjoy having them named, but not yet ready to follow a story

9 to 12 months

• Very skillful with their hands

• Learning to walk is a high priority

• Begin to say first words and respond to simple questions and directions

• Beginning to make connections between objects and events

• Board books with familiar objects and activities are very interesting

• Listen with interest to talk about what they are looking at in books, and attempt to repeat words

12 to 18 months

• Language blossoms

• Produce a lot of jabbering which sounds like actual speech

• May start to sing along when sung to or when listening to recordings

• Enjoy books with songs and repetitive phrases

• Begins to be interested in and able to follow simple stories about little ones that relate to their own experience

19 to 30 months

• Begin to form simple sentences and actual conversation is possible

• “Why?” becomes continuous, as a technique for obtaining information, but often also in order to keep a conversation going

• Actual stories are enjoyed now - about other children, about how things work, and what makes thing happen

• Books with an illustration and a little text on each page are best

• Will spend a lot of time looking at illustrations 

• Love predictable books – ones in which sentences are repetitive and rhyme