The Baby Book Nook

Meet two babies extraordinaire, 17-month-old siblings Quincy and Simone. Their mom kindly let me post their YouTube video and answered questions about their reading routine. Cast a researcher's eye as the video plays: The babies are reading Let's Play Peek-a-boo ! by Jane Massey. Simone reaches for a peek-a-boo flap on the front cover. Quincy's eyes follow. This is the first of several moments of joint attention, when reading partners focus on the same word, picture, or page element. This it the sweet spot of read-aloud where learning takes place. Simone holds the book right-side-up and reads from front to back. The babies turn pages- sometimes one at a time- sometimes several at once. Quincy points. Simone plays, diving into the book to kiss a mirror insert on the last page. Peek-a-boo! Together, they vocalize, back and forth, in book conversation. Booooo! Simone and Quincy look at books daily. They attend a library lap-sit program weekly. Favorite books include...

Reading researchers Monique Senechal, Edward H. Cornell and Lorri S. Broda studied the reading behaviors of 36 babies- 12 9-month-olds, 12 17-month-olds, and 12 27-month-olds. They wrote their findings in an article titled "Age-Related Differences in the Organization of Parent-Infant Interactions During Picture-Book Reading." They note, The youngest children, on average, looked at the books for 55% of the duration of the reading episode. The 17-month-olds looked at the books for 73% of the time, and the 27-month-olds looked at the books 88% of the time. In addition, the youngest children looked at the book less and less as the reading progressed. In other words, the older babies looked longer than the younger babies and the 9-month-olds (only) experienced looking fatigue during the course of a single book. The researchers also note, Children could look at each double-spread page for 30 seconds for a total of 120 seconds per book . Babies vary. Senechal's statistic...