There are so many benefits to sharing picture books with your toddler. Picture books for toddlers help encourage word learning, develop an understanding of the world around them and hopefully inspire your toddler’s imagination. Just to share a few!
But in a world with so many book choices, opinions and daily decisions that parents and carers make each day, picking the best toddler books to bring home can easily become overwhelming.
Here you’ll find 5 things I look for when choosing some of the best toddler books, the first goal I think about when using picture books with toddlers, and some of my favourite picture books.
Quick access to my favourite book picks here.
Using Picture Books for Speech and Language Development
First, let’s think about some expectations around picture books and story time. Take a moment to reflect on these few questions:
- – How do you share picture books with your toddler?
- – How does your toddler respond to storytime?
- – What are you expecting when it comes to sharing books together?
When it comes to sharing books with your baby, toddler or preschooler, there is a slight shift in the focus of your storytime. The focus is on helping your little one discover the enjoyment and love of books. So,
- – It’s ok if you don’t read all the words
- – It’s ok if you look at the pictures and make up your own story
- – It’s ok to look at a few pages and then take a break
- – It’s ok to talk about what catches your toddler’s attention in the book
- – It’s ok to find the red bus, T-Rex, dog or another interest in the book
- – And it’s ok to pick the same picture books again and again
It’s about the experiences you create with your toddler. We’re hoping that your little one enjoys spending that time with you and they can’t wait until the next time they can look at a book.
Once you and your toddler have set up an enjoyable book sharing routine, you can start to include a speech and language focus.
Related Post: 7 Reading Tips for Parents
How to Find Picture Books for Toddlers
There are a few key things to look for when picking picture books for your toddler. However, try not to get too stuck on finding the ‘perfect’ book because the focus is on building a positive relationship with books.
Here are 5 things I think about when choosing picture books for toddlers. Books do not need to include all of these features but they’re a good starting point!
1 – Interests
What does your toddler like? Cars? Animals? Dinosaurs?
Children are more likely to communicate, interact and learn when we include their interests. You could include your toddler’s personal interests (i.e., their favourite things and activities) or situational interests (i.e., interests that occur when the situation is interesting).
Your toddler’s interests help build those interactions with you and they keep story time fun because your little one is intrinsically motivated and engaged. Including your toddler’s interests helps their speech and language development.
2 – Simple and Repetitive Language
Picture books for toddlers with simple and repetitive language contribute to creating a predictable and familiar story structure. This predictability lets your toddler know what to expect in the story and anticipate what might happen next. By simplifying the language, your toddler can focus on specific words, phrases and concepts, and how they relate to the story and their own life.
The repetitive nature of the language incorporates elements of rhythm and musicality into your story time. This can make story time fun and helps keep your toddler’s attention for a little longer, even if it’s just a few seconds. Repetition is also great for developing your toddler’s confidence in understanding and using those new words, phrases and concepts.
3 – Interactive
Picture books for toddlers that have an interactive feature are great for creating opportunities where your toddler can join in and take their turn in your book experience. These interactive features can also create surprise and wonder!
Some of the best toddler books that are interactive:
- – Have a cause-and-effect element like a lift-the-flap book or hiding a character
- – Encourage making sounds
- – Encourage movement
- – Have moveable parts
- – Have a tactile or sensory element (e.g., fluffy material, bumpy material)
4 – Routines and Everyday Words
Books that talk about your toddler’s daily routines are important to include on your toddler’s bookshelf.
These picture books for toddlers provide a familiar and relatable context. This helps with building an understanding of the sequence of common routines and making sense of the world around them. They also give your toddler opportunities to hear those everyday words again and again.
5 – Fun Words and Rhyming
Some of the best toddler books include fun words and sounds, like “roar” “crash” “toot toot” “whoosh”. These sounds are great for catching your little one’s attention and keeping the story-sharing time exciting!
It can be easier to be playful with these words by changing your pitch, volume and intonation. AND these fun words and sounds are easier for your toddler to copy. As their confidence builds so will their speech and language skills.
Rhyming creates a musical tone within your stories, which helps keep your toddler engaged with the book for a little longer. This not only makes listening to speech and language fun and catchy but it also lays the foundations for early literacy skills.
Some of the Best Toddler Books
I often get asked for picture book recommendations in speech and language therapy sessions. While these may be some of the best toddler books, they’re not a ‘one size fits all’. But these are 10 of my favourites that I pull off the bookshelf again and again!
- Click the link for your free copy. It includes:
- – 10 picture book recommendations for toddlers
- – Reasons why these books have been chosen
- – A bookmark with things to consider when choosing books
- – 6 Tips for sharing books with your toddler
A Little Preview
- 1. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
- 2. Good Night Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann
- 3. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr and Eric Carle
- 4. That’s Not My… Book Series by Fiona Watt
- 5. Little Blue Truck by Alice Shertle
Hopefully, you feel more confident with picking the right picture books for your toddler! Remember that it’s about creating those enjoyable book experiences together so the right picture books for your toddler may be different to the ones recommended above.
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