Your three year old:
- Knows that print is what is read in stories.
- Has favorite books and likes to hear them often.
- Pretends to read and write.
- Makes up silly sounds, words, and songs.
- Plays a part in reading by turning pages and saying words in well-known stories.
- Demonstrates comprehension through questions and observations.
Your four year old:
- Enjoys sharing books with a caregiver.
- Knows some letter sounds, and can differentiate between sounds that are the same
- and sounds that are different.
- Knows some printed letters and numbers.
- Often has some books memorized.
- May be able to identify rhyming words.
Tips for reading with your preschooler:
- Talk about the characters in a story and what they are doing.
- Improve reading comprehension by asking who, what, when, where, why, and how questions.
- Recite rhymes and poems with your child.
- Keep books in places where your child can easily see them.
- Ask open-ended questions that involve more than a one or two word response.
- Go places together and discuss your experiences.
- Read books with patterns and familiar phrases that your child can "read" along with you.
- Read books about counting, the alphabet, numbers, colors, and shapes.
- Show and name the parts of a book, such as the cover, title, author, pages, top, bottom, front, and back.
Books for three year old preschoolers:
- Are You My Mother by P.D. Eastman
- Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
- It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw
- Mouse Paint by Ellen Soll Walsh
- Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy E. Shaw and Margot Apple
- Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert
- The Dinosaur Alphabet Book by Jerry Pallotta
- The Napping House by Audrey Wood and Don Wood
- The Random House Book Of Poetry For Children by Jack Prelutsky
- Yummy Yucky by Leslie Patricelli
Books for four year old preschoolers:
- Bug Safari by Bob Barner
- Cars and Trucks and Things That Go by Richard Scarry
- Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes
- Color Zoo by Lois Ehlert
- Happy Birthday, Moon by Frank Asch
- If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Joffe Numeroff
- Jamberry by Bruce Degen
- Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear? by Nancy White Carlstrom
- Jump, Frog, Jump! by Robert Kalan
- The Owl And The Pussycat by Jan Brett
- The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
- Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak