Can you advise me on first word books for my baby?

Hi lovemybooks!

I’m still enjoying your website thank you!
I wondered if I could ask your advice on first word books for my son. He’s 9 months old now and I am looking for books to help him distinguish different words (cat / tree / ball etc..). There are so many out there, please let me know if you have found any to be good!

Thank you
Tamiko

Hi Tamiko,
It’s lovely to hear from you.

We think that 9 months is a bit early for word recognition really!
The development of talking and understanding are the most important things at this stage, so in terms of your question, books like Allan Ahlberg’s The Baby’s Catalogue might be a good place to start. It has lots of pictures that are part of a baby’s world.
Have you seen our sections on learning to read and becoming a reader? That might be useful information for you, let us know if you have further questions.
So, it is good to spend lots of time talking about illustrations , playing games that help distinguish shapes, and sorting objects will help will eventually feed into the ability to distinguish and recognise words and letters  later. Plus of course lots of time hearing you read aloud, share rhymes and songs.

Later on you can start to pick out the important words in a picture book story eg names or words that interest your child this maybe something like dinosaur!

Also, later on, for many children, their own name is the first word and group of letters that they recognise. In our work with young children we’ve found that ‘name books’ where you can make a simple book using photos and names of people your child’s world – are a fun way to start recognising words.

Hope this helps,
lovemybooks

Let us know if you try any of our activities we would love to hear or see photos!