Entering the story world.

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim (In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful).
Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.

Today I'll be sharing with you about how to entertain your child who will be turning two years old. Now is the right time to introduce stories to her. It's quite an easy task only that you need a lot of patience. Before you took her to the wonderful world of stories, you need to remember a few important things. Let's see...

There are two important things to remember about reading stories.

1. the experience should be enjoyable for your child, and
   
2. the child needs help with her story memory.
   

To ensure enjoyment, don't interrupt stories as you read them. Don't try to explain everything and define words as you go. Children love the flow of it - the modulated storyteller voice, even if they don't understand most of the words. If you're asked to read a favourite story over and over, take advantage of this. Read a story through in a normal way. Then go back and pick out a character or place or event that's important to the story. Turn back to the page where the important character first appears and look at the picture. Talk about what this character looks like, what he's wearing. If it's an animal, tell your child what it is. Talk about where the character is - what place is it? Where did he come from? Why did he go to this place? Where is he going next?

After spending a few minutes on this, read the story again (if it's short) in the usual way. Next time, focus on something else, an event, like why all the puppies fell out of the boat. What made that happen? So on and on.

See, it's not difficult at all to start reading story to your child. You just need 10 to 20 minutes for this. Insya-Allah your child will be looking forward for more reading and stories soon.

Wassalam.

Ref: Growing a Reader from Birth, McGuinsess, D. (2004). London: W. W. Norton & Company.