Relate the pictures of a book to your child's life experiences. Ask them to predict what will happen in the book or what the book is about. Accept pointing or simple word answers and expand on what they say. For example, when your child points at picture and says, “Lion roar”, respond with, "Yes! The lion is roaring!"
How a reading adult carries out conversations during the reading process can have an impact on a child’s later language skills. In a study of 87 primary caregivers and their 24-month-old children enrolled in an early intervention programme, it was found that caregivers’ use of labelling, expansions, and questions was related to 24-month-old children’s attention during reading.
Although children’s language skills at 24 months were associated with the reported frequency of caregiver reading at home, caregivers’ use of questions had a relationship with frequency of reading.
Other studies have also found that while reading to children, specific parent behaviours, such as asking open-ended questions, adding information, focusing on print concepts, and eliciting abstract language, are related to children's later language skills.
One of the most powerful pieces of shared reading is what happens in the pauses between pages and after the book is closed. The use of "decontextualised" or non-immediate talk (expanding conversation beyond the book) and active engagement has proven to be particularly beneficial for children’s language enhancement. Mothers’ use of non-immediate talk while reading to their children was related to their later performance on measures of vocabulary, story comprehension, definitions and emergent literacy. DeTemple J, Snow CE. Learning words from books. In: van Kleeck A, Stahl SA, Bauer EB, eds. On reading books to children: parents and teachers. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2003:16–36. Duursma, E., Augustyn, M. & Zuckerman, B. (2008). Reading aloud to children: The evidence. Archives of disease in childhood. 93. 554-7. 10.1136/adc.2006.106336.