Before reading the book, sit with your toddler and let him explore the book. Let him hold the book and flip through the pages. This will help with fine motor skills, which are important for writing development later. 

Introduce the title and front cover of the book and encourage your toddler to point to the pictures. 

You might say:

“The name of this book is Birthday Monsters! (Point to the words as you read the title). I see a hole in the front cover with a picture of happy monsters behind it. Can you touch the monsters? Let’s touch and count them. One … Two …. Three! Three monsters smiling at us!”

Sing the “Happy Birthday” song with your child and pretend to blow out candles together. Once you have sung the song a few times, change the song to make it your own with rhyming words. As you sing, talk about the words that you hear:

“Happy Birthday to you, you’re about to turn two, so blow out your candle, for your big birthday crew! Wow, did you hear the rhyming words? (Pause and wait for a response). Yes! You, two and crew all rhyme. The ending sounds the same. Great listening!” 

Continue to make up new lines and listen for the rhyming words together. 

Children build their understanding of phonological awareness by listening to stories, poems and songs that have rhyming or alliteration. After reading the story, engage your child in a fun, music and movement activity. 

“I noticed that the monsters were wearing birthday hats in the story to celebrate. Let’s pretend to have on party hats and sing together. Don’t forget to listen for words that rhyme.” 

Sing to the tune of Hokey Pokey 

“You put your party hat in. You put your party hat out.
You put your party hat in and you shake it all about.
You do the Celebration Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around.
That’s what it's all about!”

As you read, draw attention to the rhyming words in the story. Emphasize the words to help your child hear the two words that sound the same at the end.  

“Listen as I read this page … See if you can guess what word might come at the end!”  (examples:  clock/knock, down/town, ready/confetti, eight/wait, best/rest)

Ask your child to retell a part of the story by describing what happened at the beginning, middle and end. 

“That sure was a silly story! Let’s look back through the pictures and you can tell me what happened.” You can also ask your child to make connections from the story to their own experiences. “Did this silly story about the Birthday Monsters remind you of anything that you’ve done? Have you ever eaten cake or gotten presents for YOUR birthday?”

Encourage your child to draw a picture relating to the story that they just heard. It might be a picture of their favorite character from the book, an event from the story or just something in their life that the book reminded them of, e.g. a birthday party, eating cake, etc. If your child has a solid understanding of letters and sounds, you might encourage labeling his or her picture with a beginning sound (“c” for cake or “m” for monster).  

“Let’s draw a picture from the story. Do you want to draw a picture of your favorite monster? What color was he? Can you think of a letter we could write next to your picture to label it?”