Reading to a 2 year old

[Dystrophin345]

I read daily to my 2 year old but I don't think he understands what is going on in the books. I think he doesn't get that there is a story and sees each pages differently rather than a continuous story. I ask him lots of questions about the book as we read and it just seems like a hit or miss and sometimes he just pauses for long periods just saying 'mmmmm'. I'm just hoping one day he could pick it up.

He can remember parts of a story but I'm not sure how much he really understands. He definitely can't retell a story although some of friends say their kids can!

Not sure if it's an age thing. He loves it when I read but only in bed otherwise he wanders off! Also doesn't have much interest in playing properly with toys - everything we do lasts for a couple of minutes before he gets bored.

Following with interest

Sounds age appropriate! Mine is almost 3 and can't recite a full story, the second, third time we read the same book she'll remember parts of what happened and tell me before we get to the actual part but other than that I don't think many 2 year olds can fully recite a full storybook.

@millian does she know that it's a continuous story? Mine won't be able to tell me even parts of a story. He will just tell me what the characters are doing on that page (and mostly he would act it out rather than say it lol). We do speak two languages with him at home so not sure if it will take a while before he becomes good at answering questions (he talks a lot otherwise)

Books that have rhymes are good because they're easier to remember - you can stop reading before the rhyming word and prompt him to say it. Then 2 words etc.

You could 'play' his favourite story with his toys to get into the idea of connected narrative meaning something, abstract stuff is hard for little kids.

Mine is 23MO and I've just started testing her by lesving out words that I know she can say in her books and seeing if she finishes the sentences and she does a lot of the time even in stories we haven't read for ages. Whether she actually really understands what's going on in the story though and understands it's a continuous story I'm not convinced she does really. She's still sometimes only interested in looking at the pics and chatting in her own language about them. I see this as all part of learning to love books though which is the most important thing at this age. 2 is a long age. A 24MO will have much different abilities to a 34MO for example so it depends on this too. Either way I think all you can really do is just keep reading simple stories and have books easily accessible so he learns to enjoy them. This is much more important at this age xx

Being able to follow or retell a story is not expected at 2YRs, it is not even expected at 3YRs (story telling starts developing from 3+ onwards).

Thanks Jannt86. Yes he does love books but he will be three in July that's why I got worried. He loves being read to and most things he's learnt from books. I guess it will just take a while but he will get there