What pleasure it is to play labeling games with a toddler and a book: "Look at the duckie.
" "What's that? That's right - it's a shoe!" or even "Which one is the pelican?" or "Which one looks angry?" You automatically increase the complexity of the descriptions or questions, to fit the child's language ability - what they understand ("tweet-tweet" to "birdie" to "bird" to "pigeon", perhaps) and from "look at" with pointing, to "find" or "show me" to "what's that?" And the baby plays as well, pointing to an object and asking for its name (often an imperious "ah"), or "naming" to the best of their ability ("quack").
It's delightful, and a game all adults play with small children and books.
It increases the baby's vocabulary, and reinforces the concept that everything actually has a name - that in fact you can talk about anything.
And of course it gets them used to books.
Often the adult actually tells the story from the pictures, at first describing what is happening in that picture, and then when the child is older, going on to explain the reason for the incident happening, and how the characters feel about it.
However I want to make a case for actually reading the words as well.
Surveys show that this is a rare activity with children younger than two - perhaps the labelling game is more natural, and might at first even seem more fun for both.
But young children are capable of listening to the author's words as well.
All babies' understood vocabulary is enormously larger than their spoken.
Long before they can say the words, they understand them.
(You don't need me to tell you this.
See young babies respond to "No" for instance, or searching for the family cat when it is mentioned).
By reading the author's words, you as a parent are behaving in an unorthodox way.
You are using language that is not your own natural way of speaking.
The vocabulary may not even be in your lexicon, let alone the baby's.
When reading we tend to use slightly more exaggerated inflexion - we naturally make it sound a bit more exciting.
All this may make some parents hesitate.
But there are huge advantages in reading the author's own words.
As well as the story there are new words, new sentence structures, new ideas.
Little ones take these all in, and often afterwards use them in their own speech.
These sound surprising because they are not part of the family's everyday speech.
My daughter at two still used "uff uff" for "pick me up", but was very familiar with the words of nursery rhymes.
"Uff uff me, or my heart will break!" (Many parents who do not read the words of stories will say or sing nursery rhymes, of course).
She enjoyed the language for itself - an aesthetic pleasure, fostering love of language.
The meaning does not always matter.
Don't deny them the experience of the word just because they may not know it.
How will they ever learn new words unless they meet them? At two, she would often chant the word in various situations for weeks, tasting its unfamiliarity, seeming to work out for herself what it meant, before she would ask "What does mackintosh [or fortnight or camomile tea] mean?" They learn that it is the print that carries the words, too - the words are not part of the pictures, nor is the adult making them up as they go along.
Print always says the same thing in the same order.
My son was only thirteen months when he came over to see the bird I'd read about in a story to the older child.
There was no picture on the page, but he pointed firmly to the words and said "bir".
He seemed to know already where the words were.
When tiny children are read to they get to hear real stories with a beginning, middle and end.
At first you will have to use techniques to prevent the page turning in lumps - I found pointing to the picture as you read the words kept the little one focussed, and kept the page down too.
Then you help them pick up just one page to turn.
Though of course even out of order the author's own words can still be interesting and exciting.
And when they have been used to listening to the words of the simplest board books, they can easily move on to more complex picture books, then even (by about four) to episodic books like Pooh (the original AA Milne one of course, not Disney's version) and soon after, whole novels.
A second child may even join in listening to the long book being read to the older child, so be introduced to CS Lewis or JK Rowlings.
When he was four, my son had listened in to many of the chapters being read to his sister over the previous three months.
Moominland Midwinter (Tove Jansson) was the first non-episodic 'chapter book' read specifically for him.
At bedtime the first night he wanted to know: 'How will we remember what we were up to?' I told him.
'That was the first chapter.
' 'Is it pretending to join onto the next chapter?' he wanted to know.
'It is one story right through the book.
' 'Does it go on and on and on?' he asked, clearly delighted with this new concept.
From then on, he often shared the novels with his sister, with readings usually delayed until both were present to listen.
Finally, perhaps most importantly, they get to recognise literary language.
It is no shock to them when they reach school to find that the language of books is always in complete sentences, that there are words they may not understand.
Don't underestimate your children - read them the words as well as playing the labelling game.
You'll find you both enjoy the activity.
All too soon they will recognise when a word is changed or if any of it is skipped.
And a retelling won't do, either.
'Don't tell me all about it.
Just read it to me!' as my daughter demanded at two and a half.