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My nephew (Age 2) is about to visit and I was looking online for a book that is like an introduction to the English language. He already has several books in German that contain plenty of nouns and verbs and I thought I might sneak an English book into his life which is similar to the above mentioned.

So the general question would be where should a child this age start and what books would you highly recommend for the purpose?

J.R.
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Destroyewski
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    Welcome to ELL! I've heard that The Very Hungry Caterpillar is nice to read. I like Dr. Seuss's One Fish Two Fish. Goodreads can give you an idea or two too, http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/childrens-fiction-ages-2-5. :-) – Damkerng T. Mar 05 '14 at 12:45
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    Maybe, this is the better place for this question - http://parenting.stackexchange.com/ – Maulik V Mar 05 '14 at 13:12
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    Question would be better on parenting http://parenting.stackexchange.com/ – None Mar 05 '14 at 15:14

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You can't do better than Dr. Seuss in my opinion. "Hop on Pop" is for very young children. "Green Eggs and Ham" is more challenging, and there are numerous other books at this level. You can go to any children's bookstore or library and look through a large selection.

I remember getting "McElligott's Pool" and "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" for my fourth birthday and being able to read them fairly well. If the child reads at all at age two then it can't hurt to have a variety of these books on hand that he can pick up as he progresses.

Another great children's book (although beyond all but a few two-year-olds) is "Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak.

BobRodes
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  • By all means, at least put Where the Wild Things Are on the home bookshelf! I can still remember classmates jostling for that one in the elementary school library. – J.R. Mar 05 '14 at 18:47
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I would start with something on his level. I think if you got him a book he would look at it and then get bored with it quickly (just my opinion with my own son but every kid is different, take it or leave it) www.pbskids.org is a wonderful website. It is a public access station here locally that has educational only programming. Even though it will all be in English, he will be able to play the games and associate the words he is hearing with the actions he sees on the screen. I think he will pick some English up quickly this way, it seems that his brain can create his own ways to learn much better than an adult can try to teach it. (I hope that makes sense) This site has interactive games, videos, coloring sheets you can print out and much more. I encourage you to give it a shot. I don't know if PBS is only Iowa based or not so I thought I would share. My son is 2 1/2 and is bilingual, and he really enjoys this site, and best of all it is free. We work though it and I have him tell me what things are in both languages. He speaks English and Serbo-Croatian.

HukarAmer82
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As a moderator, I should probably close this question, but I'm going to mention Goodnight Moon instead. It's a good starter book, and a great bedtime story.

Also, it's a good idea to have a few a-bit-too-advanced books handy – ones that are just outside the child's reading range. Those make excellent read-aloud books.

J.R.
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