Our expert this week is once again Debbie Neuschatz, a nursery school director and teacher of nearly 50 years. She has great advice on how to engage with infants while reading. One tip: make it a conversation! And she’s naming names– as in, she’s telling us some of her all-time favorite children’s books and why she likes them. 

ASK AN EXPERT: What and how to read to our kids

Debbie Neuschatz is currently the director of Shorashim Preschool in Old Westbury. She’s worked with kids from infancy to grade 12 and has a Master’s in early childhood and special education.

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[This interview has been edited for length and clarity.] 

Let’s get right back into it. Do you have any tips on how best to engage with your child during book time? 

Make the book a narrative between the two of you. Don’t just read the book. Have a conversation about what you’re reading. 

How so? 

As soon as they are starting to focus and look at the book, you can start pointing to things on the page. Look at the picture and say, “Look at this tree. The tree is green.” And you can have the baby start to point at this thing. 

Animals are also good to point at because then you can start to make animal sounds. (Animal sounds count as words. So if you say to a child, “What does a cow say?” and they say “moo,” that counts as a word.) 

So it’s good to be interactive when you’re reading. What kind of books are best? 

I would definitely look for rhyming word books. I do this when the kids come to the library at school. I find a book that has a lot of rhyming words, like ‘One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.’ By the time they’re 3 years old, they can fill in more words than just the last word of the rhyme. Ultimately I want them to fill in the last FOUR words. So there’s a longer amount of words that they’re remembering from that page. 

Any books you specifically recommend? 

I love all books, especially the classics– the books you probably read when you were a kid like [those from] Eric Carle and Mercer Mayer. Also Caps for Sale, Corduroy, Rainbow Fish, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. They cycle themselves back to the beginning. Sequencing in reading is really, really important. 

What exactly is sequencing? 

The story has a beginning, middle, and end. So when I read to the kids at school I always ask them to tell me what they THINK is going to happen. I pick books that have conclusions that they can come up with. And it holds their interest because they’re waiting to see what the ending will be. 

[Editor’s Notes: In our next edition, Debbie will give us her take on electronic reading devices like iPads and Kindles, and give us some tips on introducing NEW books to kids.]