Invite an infant to read a book with you. Introduce the book by pointing to the cover and encouraging the infant to look at the picture with you. Example: “This is a picture of a baby. Our book is about baby faces.” Use strategies, such as the following, to engage the infant with the book:

• Encourage the infant to help you turn the book’s pages.
• Point to and name pictured objects. Example: “Look at this baby. Do you see her tongue? The baby is making a silly face!”
• Describe what the infant looks at. Example: “You are looking at the sad baby. The baby looks like she is crying. The baby has tears and a sad mouth.”
• Spend more time talking about pictures that appear to be of interest to the infant.
• Describe and respond to gestures and/or vocalizations. Example: “You are sticking out your tongue! You are looking at the baby with his tongue out. You are doing the same as the baby in our book. You both have your tongues out!”
• Help the infant connect book information to his/her experiences and developing knowledge. Example: “You are touching the eyes of the baby in our book. Where are your eyes? Let’s find them!”
• Use your voice to add interest and enjoyment. Example: Make a sad face and use a sad voice to describe a picture of a baby with a sad expression.
• Follow the infant’s cues about the preferred pace of looking at and talking about pictures.

Conclude the session by recognizing the infant’s participation in the book reading. Example: “We had fun reading this book together, Talia. You looked at the pictures of the babies. You stuck your tongue out, just like the silly baby. You helped me turn the pages! I think you liked this book.”

Invite an older infant to read a book with you. The infant may wish to sit next to you or prefer to stand close while you talk about book illustrations. Invite the infant to hold the book and turn the pages. Provide assistance, if needed, by keeping all the pages in your right hand except for the page to be turned. This will help the infant to turn one page at a time. A standing infant may want to use one hand to help turn the pages.

Explain that our book is about the faces of babies. We can look at pictures of babies and talk about what they look like. Use strategies, such as the following, to engage the infant with the book:

• Point to and provide names (or invite the infant to provide names) of pictured items. Example: “These are the baby’s eyes. Here is one eye. Here is another eye.”
• Invite the infant to point to objects that you name. Example: “The baby has a nose. Where is the baby’s nose? You can point to the baby’s nose!”
• Spend more time talking about pictures that seem to be of interest to the infant. Example: “You are pointing to the baby with her eyes closed. The word on our page says ‘yucky.’ The baby is making a yucky face! I wonder what the baby thinks is yucky.”
• Describe and respond to gestures and/or vocalizations. Example: “You said ‘uh oh!’ The words in the book say ‘uh oh!’ You said the words with me!”
• Help the infant connect book information to their experiences and developing knowledge. Example: “This baby says ‘yum-yum!’ The baby ate something that was yummy. You liked the strawberries we had for breakfast, Zachary. You thought the strawberries were yummy!”
• Read and talk about the pictures with enthusiasm. Accentuate words or characters by using different voices and facial expressions. Example: Crinkle your nose when describing a picture of the baby who seems to smell something stinky. “Ooh, ‘stinky’ says the baby!”
• Follow the infant’s cues as to how quickly or slowly he/she wishes to turn the pages. It is not necessary to look at all pictures.

Conclude the session by recognizing the infant’s participation. Example: “You helped me hold our book, Jacob. You pointed to pictures in our book. You turned the pages to see the next baby face! We had fun reading this book together.”