[Sit with the young infant reclined in your lap for talking about pictures in a book. Support the infant’s head in the bend of your arm so your hands can manage the book while also securely holding the infant.

Smile and begin talking with the infant. Example: “Hi, Caleb! You woke up and had your bottle. Let’s talk about some pictures of animals now.”

Hold the book about 12 inches from the infant and point to the picture on the cover.]

Look at the ducklings on the cover of our book. The ducklings live on a farm.

[Pause for the infant to respond to your attention. Acknowledge the response. Example: “You are looking at me and smiling, Deja. I can hear you talking! You are saying ‘Ba-ba-ba’.”]

[Use the following strategies to promote interactions with the infant:

• Use your own words to describe some aspect of a picture. It is not necessary to look at each picture.
• Consistently pause after you say something, just as you would in a conversation.
• Recognize the infant’s nonverbal communications. Example: “You are batting at the picture of a sheepdog. This dog has soft fur. Would you like to touch the dog’s soft fur?”
• Maintain eye contact throughout and remember the importance of your facial expressions.
• Encourage the infant to touch pictures that seem to be of interest. Demonstrate touching the picture when you invite the infant to touch a picture. Then move the page within easy reach of the infant’s hand, but don’t move the infant’s hand onto the picture. Example: “You are looking at the brown cow, Caleb. The brown cow has soft fur, see? Would you like to touch the cow’s soft fur?”]

[Briefly describe the exchange. Example: “We talked about pictures of farm animals. We looked at the picture of the sheepdog for a long time, Deja. We had fun looking at the picture of the yellow chick!”]