Since these books are Power Point Presentations, I show them to my baby on a computer and then print (See How to Create My Own Books).
On the computer I show books 2-3 times a day for 1-2 weeks each (depending my kid's his interest). If the book is long, then I start just with a few pages (~6-10), and then show more pages every day. I show each page very-very briefly, only as long as it takes me to read what's on it. Even if you don't follow Doman's program, I would highly recommend not to dwell on a picture for a long time - .8th of a second is probably all your kid needs, and staring on it for a longer time might wear out your baby's patience! Though, if the picture is unclear, like Picasso's, or Dali's, or Monet's works, where it is just a big blob of impressionistic or surrealistic
haze, I would try to help my son identify, that this blob is actually a train, a girl, a flower.
By the way, if the book contains famous masterpieces, I don't recite it's entire name the first time we view the book: I would start by saying what's at the picture, on the second day I would say the name, by third-fifth day I would start saying artist's name, eventually I add year. So in the end I manage to spit out all the information, but only once it is already familiar to my child. If you've read our No testing! article, then you already know a technique of leaving the words out: reading a book a few times a week I would forget one or another word letting my son proudly say it himself. If he doesn't, I say it myself and give him a hug and a kiss regardless of his answer.
So, showing books is easy: just click F5 key in Power Point and vualya! read the book as appears on the screen, quickly traversing from one slide to the next - and stop before your baby wants to stop (it is better to leave the book unfinished then have a tired baby who doesn't want to watch it next time).
Showing Encyclopedic Knowledge books/presentations is very similar. Except to avoid baby learning the sequence of animals, metalloids or chemical elements we need to randomize them. Every time. I use the following free randomizer:Power Point Plugin for slide randomizing and teaching math . It allows to randomize pairs of slides (text on one slide, picture on the next) but it requires an even number of pages in the presentation. All the presentations that I create or translate have even number of pages, but if the presentation that you found on some other site doesn't have an even number of slides, just add another page or remove the title page (as you wish). I prefer adding a page where the book title is written without any distracting fonts or pictures.
I came up with a few options. First, simplest, cheapest, but less durable books:
|
||
![]() |
Staples, Office Depot and other stores sell sliding bar report covers: all of you probably used them in college (the ones I linked to are merely examples - I personally prefer "heavy weight" covers and protectors to make the page a little more sturdier). | ![]() ![]() |
|
||
![]() |
For especially loved and cherished books I placed their pages into individual sheet protectors and ring binders. | |
| The good thing: fast and easy! The bad: so far my almost two year old can hardly read a book without me - they are too fragile, sheets are too thin and easily crumble in the little hands; it is way too hard for a toddler to keep them open without damaging it. I am still experimenting. | ||
So, the next few methods involve a little more, but I like the results a lot better.
My favorite Normal Size books: these are my favorite so far. I've printed the presentations (landscape format) on the thick paper above, used three hole puncher to make 4 holes on the right and... no binder. Instead I found binder rings that are sold separately (l'll add a link soon) and put them through the holes individually. To make it even pretty, I added a single sheet cover from Staples at the top.
It is quite sturdy, four rings on the side hold the book together pretty well and, most importantly, my baby can flip the pages from side to side as opposed to calendar style, that he can't hold! So he can actually read these books by himself!
Please share if you know any other method.
Comments
Thanks to Yonit Kasten at
Thanks to Yonit Kasten at TeachYourBabyToRead for sharing this with us:
I did the books on the square bit cards, made the letters nice and big 3-hole punched them and tied them up with yarn. So for example, some of the earliest books were things like:
Sima's Breakfast
scrambled eggs
(picture of scrambled eggs)
Orange juice
(picture of a glass of orange juice)
bowl of cereal
(picture of a bowl of cereal)
Delicious!
That is just one example, we had them for going on a walk, her gymnastics class, her family...pretty much anything that was about her and interest her. And as I said, each of the words in the above story was also made into a word card for the baby, and dd would sometimes listen in. As she got into it more, I made the stories more complex and also not always about her. LOL
Thanks to Tamsyn Spackman
Thanks to Tamsyn Spackman for sharing this:
I wanted to send a thank you note to the person who recommended making books with photo albums from the dollar store and couldn't find out who it was. I went to our local second hand store and bought two photo albums and it made making books really easy, and they're sturdy enough for my baby which is always a plus. A lot of people donate their old photo albums because they want to switch to acid-free things for their photos, but I think for a book with magazine clippings, etc, they work great, and it's nice to recycle too. Anyway, I just wanted
to share in my excitement, and thanks again!
Tamsyn Spackman