Teach My Toddler and 8 Tips For Reading With Your Toddler! I recently came across a great blog called, Teach Preschool. It is written by Deborah J Stewart, M.Ed., a woman with over 20 years of experience in early childhood education. Deborah recently posted a blog with 8 tips for reading with your toddler. The tips are absolutely fantastic, so I wanted to share a quick summary of each tip. For a more in-depth description of the tips, please check out Teach Preschool

8 Tips For Reading With Your Toddler

1. Choose Good Quality Board Books

Toddlers are still building their fine motor skills, so the thicker the pages, the better! Teach My Toddler contains 4 thick board books!

2. Get The Board Book ‘Read-Ready’

Open each page of the book, separate the pages and bend the pages slightly, making it easier for your toddler to turn the pages.

3. Finger Page Turning

Read the book through a few times and then encourage your toddler to turn pages and interact with the book. (more…)

Babies need to hear 30 million+ words before entering school. Betty Hart, Ph.D., and Todd R. Risley, Ph.D., conducted nearly 10 years of research to learn why some children perform better than others in school. According to their book, Meaningful Differences, the answer is words. The quantity of talk and interactions that parents had with their child predicted a child’s IQ and vocabulary size.

According to The Ounce Of Prevention Fund, children who hear fewer words and are engaged in less conversation before age three have dramatically smaller vocabularies than children who have richer, early language experiences. Research has shown that  the average child from a middle-class family hears 11 million words per year!

30 million words sounds like a lot but with lots of play, reading aloud and interaction, your little one is bound to hear that many!

Requiring no batteries, DVDs or TV, Teach My Baby encourages natural interaction and parent-child bonding. The award winning Teach My Baby kit has everything necessary for fun, educational play!  The kit is divided into 4 sections; First Words, First Numbers, Self and Sound & Touch. The teaching tools are modern, multicultural and they encourage natural repetition. The kit includes board books, nesting blocks, finger puppets, touch & feel flashcards, mirrored flashcards, a storyboard, one & two piece puzzles, all in a portable and storable carrying kit.

MSRP $49.99 Age 6-18 Months

When teaching your toddler, repetition is the key to success! According to Parenting Magazine and Dr. Mark Bertin, a developmental pediatrician, “Repetition is how toddlers learn things, including words and speech.” Hearing something many times helps toddlers remember information for longer periods of time.

Also, according to the NDSU, a young child’s brain is “wired” to encourage repetition of sounds, patterns or experiences, which all lead to the development of strong neural pathways in the brain that become the highways of learning.

Teach My Toddler learning tools are specifically designed to encourage natural repetition. Each section contains a coordinated book, puzzle, poster and flashcards, so simple concepts are repeated over and over.

So, next time your toddler says the same thing for the millionth time, grin and bear it and remember, it is all part of the essential learning process!

What is Pinterest? Warning – Highly Addictive! Teach My started pinning about 2 months ago. At the time, I wrote a short blog about Pinterest. However, now I think Pinterest is really gaining momentum, I wanted to come back and share my insight!

Pinterest is a virtual pinboard. It is a place to share cool things that you find on the web. For Teach My, it took a while to get into the correct mindset but once there, it becomes truly addictive!

Teach My has 34 boards and 292 pins! I like to use my pinboards for things that I think Teach My customers are really interested in. I recently added a pinboard for Giveaways and my favorite boards are Brain Food for Kids, Teachable Moments, Very Cool and Funny Things Kids Say!

As I mentioned, you need to get into the Pinterest mindset! You can pin images from most websites and definitely from google images! If you need an invite to Pinterest, let me know and I’ll set you up! In the meantime, happy pinning and I look forward to following your pinboards and pinning great stuff on the Teach My boards!

When teaching your preschooler to read, be certain to point out letters and words on the pages. Sometimes the simplest things can make a world of difference! Next time you are reading aloud, use your index finger to point out capital letters, words, puncutation marks and show that reading starts from left to right and top to bottom on the page.

According to research by Shayne Piasta, assistant professor of teaching and learning at Ohio State University, preschool children whose teachers used print references during storybook reading showed more advanced reading skills one and even two years later when compared to children whose teachers did not use such references.

Try making a game out of it; call your index finger the ‘magic reading finger’, anything to make reading more fun for your little one! For some parents and caregivers, it is a small change that could make a huge difference!

Teach My Preschooler Ready To Read offers a head start in learning to read. Just 20 minutes a day with the award winning Teach My Preschooler reading tools and your little one can master letter sounds, reading aloud and 60 vocabulary words! Use the 10 step reading system, the flashcards, the flashcard holder and the reward tin to encourage early reading. The set has everything you need to give your preschooler’s reading skills a head start!