Everyone’s talking about it.
All daycare centres do it.
Everyone knows how good it is for the kids.
Even my visiting nurse for 8 month old Hugo has talked about it.
Have you guessed what it is yet?

✨ Dialogic reading!✨

It actually took some time before I fully understood what it was all about. I googled and read about it on the internet. We also read books that included a description of how to practice dialogic reading of the story at the back. But I found it all a little confusing.

But I learnt more, and so can you!

You too can become a master of dialogic reading. With the children’s book The Great Book of Chit-Chat, you will beinspired and guided through the concept while you flip through the book. It really is a huge help.

Tip: It is a good idea to read the book yourself before reading it with the children. That way, you’ve already thought about what you can talk about on different pages

Repetition and themes

It can be a little annoying when your child wants to read the same book A L L the time. Right? But it’s actually a really good thing as this gives your child lots of repetition, which makes it easier to store the words and language in the brain. So do your best to seem equally as engaged each time 😉

The Great Book of Chit-Chat is about things that children are familiar with from their everyday life. It’s therefore recognisable for the child, which increases their comprehension. And kids LOVE things they can recognise! The book is made for children aged 18 months to 4 years. But that’s just a guideline.

The Great Book of Chit-Chat is also structured in such a way that you don’t have to read it all at once, so you can also start earlier than the 18 months. You can divide it up, for example taking the first part, which is about Eddie and Hannah’s (the main characters) morning and their routines, before dropping the kids off at preschool or nursery.

For the older children, it may be more relevant to read about opposites (photo with the train station above)  and use the book as a springboard for some fun activities and conversation about opposites.

Or something we work with a lot at home: prepositions! They are very simply illustrated with a cat and a towel as well as a short text with suggestions for play.

With just a little push, you can often get creative when it comes to playing. Perhaps you could play hide and seek and train the child’s auditory memory (again something we work a lot with)? Here, the person who hides something describes using prepositions where he/she has hidden the item to the other player

And it can vary endlessly in difficulty. The adult should be the role model the first few times and then the child can be allowed to hide the item.

Example of hide and seek prepositions:

Easy: ”The cat is hidden inside the closet”

Medium: ” The cat is hidden inside the closet on the middle shelf

Hard: ” The cat is hidden inside the closet, on the middle shelf, behind the box”

Very hard: ” The cat is hidden inside the closet, on the middle shelf, behind the box, under the towel”

The Great Book of Chit-Chat is sold exclusively here. It’s written by psychologist Ina Haller and illustrated by Lea Letén, who are behind Rebus’ Børneformidling, a danish company that develops communication products for children.

Long before we entered into a collaboration to reprint and sell the book, it was on our bookshelf at home. And I hope and wish that it will become part of every home with small children (one can always dream!)

In Eddie and Hannah’s universe you will also find other books, and in the same design by Lea Leten the popular pictograms.

All the best,
Rikke