10 Books That Get Toddlers Talking

Fostering a love for reading early on builds strong foundation for literacy

Here a few tips to choose books that will keep your little one engaged:

1. Choose books that are interactive like lift the flap blooks or books with a sensory component
2. Choose books that don’t have a ton of words to keep your toddler engaged and to keep them from getting overwhelmed by too much language
3. Choose books that have interesting pictures

Books are great for talking too!

Here are some tricks encourage more talking with books:

1. If there is something that happens repeatedly in the book like opening a flap, say that word each time you do the action so your toddler can hear the word repeatedly
2. If there is phrase that is said over and over, try pausing to encourage your little one to fill in the blank
3. Add fun sounds to encourage imitation. If there is a car say, “Beep Beep!” as you point to the car
4. Try having your toddler face you while reading so they can see your mouth and facial expressions as you say different words

Here are a few of favorite books to use in speech therapy with late-talking toddlers:

My First Learn to Talk Book: 

We typically hear little ones imitate fun sounds before they imitate words. This book, written by a Speech Pathologist, is full of these sounds. You can model sounds and gestures to encourage your little one to imitate. It also has a wonderful close-up pictures of toddlers saying the sounds

Brown Bear:

I love to sing this one to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle.” Add the animal sounds and actions to encourage imitation. Pause on wait before saying, “me” and model gesturing to yourself

Dada/ Everything Mama:

 I love the repetition of these books. You can incorporate pausing and waiting to encourage your little one to imitate, “Mama” or “Dada”

Who Says Peek-a-Boo?

 I love this whole series! Encourage imitation of animal sounds throughout the book.” There is a mirror at the end you can encourage your little one to watch your mouth as you say, “Boo!”

My First Noisy Books:

The sounds in this book are perfect for encouraging your little one to imitate. You can also target a word like “push” or “help” throughout

Oh No, Poo Poo/Pee Pee: 

This silly book was written by a Speech Pathologist. Practice telling the dinosaur and puppy, “No, no” or encourage your little one to imitate “eww” if they are beginning to imitate sounds Link here (not available on Amazon): Bjorem Speech Books | Speech Therapy | OH NO Poo-Poo – Bjorem Speech®

Dear Zoo:

Lift the flap books are great because they add an interactive component. Use this book to model animal noises. You can also model knocking on the boxes to encourage imitation of gestures and signing/saying open before you open each box

All Better:

For beginning talkers, I ignore the text and simplify the language such as, “Puppy went boom!” You can model gesture such as blowing a kiss and words like boo-boo and ouch!”

Pete the Cat-I Love My White Shoes:

I love the repetition in this book! Here’s a video of how I read it

Melissa and Dog Popping Books:

These books are interactive and great for keeping little ones engaged! Model “Pop” each time you pop a bubbles. Once you little one is using more words, model a longer phrase, “Pop the _____” to work towards word combinations. I love the “Goodnight” one because we also practice telling the animals, “Night Night” and gesturing “Shhh!”