5 Books We Love To Read With Children

Do you love to read books to your child?

Are you unsure as to which book to choose?

We love using books in our therapy sessions but often the key is choosing the best book that will hold their attention. To help you, here is a list of 5 books that are proven winners in the clinic.

Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell

 

This is an oldie but a goodie. Children enjoy books with repetition where they know what will happen next. This allows them to add words or talk during book-share.Lift the flaps gives children a job to do. You can make this book even more entertaining by adding extra words and actions (e.g. knock knock before opening the flap).

A little trick (if you have a child that is hard to engage with books) is to skip reading the words and instead talk about what’s happening on each page. Again use repetition and getting them to interact by guessing the animals and lifting the flaps. As their attention increases in the following months, you can always go back to reading the story to them.

Oh Dear by Rod Campbell

 

Another oldie with lift the flaps. To increase on the experience, add in animal noises. You can also talk about what the animals feel like (soft, bristly etc).

The Nut Stayed Shut by Mike Henson

 

This is a recent addition but the children really enjoy this story. There is lots of repetition, the pictures are descriptive and the story is quirky. If you are trying to get your child to think of different ways to solve a problem, this is the ideal book.

Aliens Love Underpants by Claire Freedman and Ben Cort

 

Another favourite, this is a wonderful book for descriptions. The pictures and story are guaranteed to get children chatting. If you have a child learning rhyme, this is a terrific book for that too. Although it isn’t repetitive, the rhyming gives the story a nice rhythm which the children find fun to listen to.

Bad Dog Marley by John Grogan

 

The challenge now is to start book-sharing moreRemember, you don’t need to ‘read’ the story. The easiest way to keep your child engaged is to give them something to do (e.g. lift a flap), use repetition and just have fun!

 

This is a story about a family who gets a new puppy but soon discover that it destroys everything in sight. It’s a great story with beautiful illustrations. We use this book as an opportunity to talk about feelings, to track how feelings change from happiness to frustration and then relief. It’s also a wonderful book for predicting, for comparing ok and not ok behaviour as well as problems and solutions.