Should I encourage my 2 year old to be quiet when listening to stories?

[Somebodyslookingforus]

My 2 year old isn’t really into books but will sit and read with me as part of bedtime routine but shouts all the way through. He will see say a sheep on the pictures and shout SHEEEEP BAAA SHEEEEEEP.

I don’t want to discourage participation. But it makes actually reading to him a bit pointless as I can hardly hear myself think so I feel like I should encourage him to be quiet and listen to the story? Not sure what the right thing to do is.

My ds is 2 later in the year. He does EXACTLY the same, OP. So I don’t read him the words at the moment. He’s so interested in the sounds and pictures that we just point things out and occasionally I’ll say a word or sentence from the book. He isn’t interested in a ‘story’ as such yet

My daughter did this. It made reading very difficult! Bedtime stories have always been too stimulating for her so we’ve never been able to enjoy that 😞

I would sometimes just say ‘yes, that’s a sheep’ and carry on being interrupted a million times and other days I’d ditch the book in despair!

She still interrupts (she’s 7) through stories but it’s less annoying and it’s more her telling me what words or mean or how the characters feel.

It’s definitely not pointless to carry on reading to him if you can stand it 🤣

I miss those days tbh 😞
Make the most of them.

Noisy Crow do some great ones with moving parts which stand up robustly to actually being used by a toddler. We have Twinkle twinkle little star, but I've seen lots of others (not all nursery rhymes if that's not your thing).

Mine does this too. I read slowly and can now anticipate when to pause so he can point and repeat the words and sounds to his heart's content.

I had to stop taking him to rhyme time at the library though as he couldn't sit still and kept interrupting the story by grabbing the book with exuberance, pointing and making the sounds while the other little ones sat and listened, bless them.

Sometimes doing less of the reading and just going along with their enthusiasm is the only way!

2 year olds don't necessarily need stories read to them.
They need words and pictures and love to be interactive.
My daughter loved a book when she was around that age that was basically "the cow went MOO, the sheep went BAA" etc - she would say the "Moo" bit and I would read the rest.
Lift the flap books are fantastic at that age.

Aw he's enthusiastic. Let him "read" to you. There's really no need to have any expectations of him listening to you at 2.

Mine were like that so we did reading and then sang a few songs before goodnight and lights out. So when they’d get all noisy, we’d gently say save that for when we do songs.

My 3rd is like this. My first would sit and listen to anything at that age but no 3 is very select in his book choice and generally wants ones with machinery so he can point at what he will be driving! Reading a story has been hard, I’d just do what he wants and shout baaa too! And not worry about actually reading it beginning to end. It will come with time! Baaaaa!

I would say as long as he's shouting something to do with the book, he's getting something out of it

Oh gosh I wish I had the patience to allow my child to shout over stories at bedtime. To be fair I don't mind at any other times but just before bed I think it's time to be quiet and wind down?

I personally encourage a lot of loud energetic play (running around, rough housing, jumping on the bed, whatever she likes basically) before bath. And then when we get out the bath I encourage the calmer side of things (I mean it's no exact science because what 3 year old loves being calm 🤣) but it works well enough I just remind her it's quiet time now etc. as for the books, if she talks over me I just say shall we stop this book now as your listening ears aren't working, and then she is quiet and I can read

I miss those times so much. Not saying that to make you feel guilty about struggling, because we all struggle and no doubt I was a frazzled mess at the time. I'm just just making an observation about the energy and joy of early language. Ask him to read the book to you, I'm sure he'd do an excellent job. I've got videos of my little one 'reading' to me at that age and they are precious memories. He's engaging with the book, 2 year old style, so you're doing an excellent job.

Another good option is ‘You Choose’, there’s only pictures and the kids make up their own story as they go.

It's normal, that's him trying to read! He might be old for this one, but something like 'baby catalogue' that is just pictures to point to would be good for him.

You can't expect him to quietly listen! He's 2! The actual expectation is that he's making noise and engaging in any way, even if he's listening from the other side of the room.

Just FYI, you won't get a quiet child listening to a story until they're about 13, when they won't want a story anyway.

chill out, lower your expectations and change how you're presenting a book to him. It should be less than 2 lines per page, plenty of pictures and you should be pointing out the pictures, not the words.

He is 2!

Big difference developmentally between 2 and 3 year olds though by 3 they have more of an attention span and understanding

Teacher here ! At this age it’s about developing a love of reading , so just keep doing what you are doing . You can try asking questions and engage him , but he’s very young so just make those times enjoyable and keep at the bedtime reading routine , as he grows he will get more involved and understand the story and enjoy it then you can start to ask him questions , see he understands the story , recognise words etc - it’s developing the love of reading that’s important so that when he grows and goes to school he will enjoy reading and continue to do so x

Honestly there’s no such thing as pointless reading when it comes to children. Just them looking at books and having that as part of their daily routine is amazing. Keep going and eventually he will want books about poos and farts and the noises will change but quieten down 🙂

@Somebodyslookingforus yes, this is so, so normal. I will say that in my experience (12 years of reading stories to kids and counting) they continue to interrupt, but eventually it turns into questions and discussion about the story - which can be really good! I now have a very genre-savvy pair who like to make guesses about where the story's going to go, talk about why the author decided one thing over another... they both read strongly and do well in English. I found reading to them when they were little just as frustrating as you do - but it's developed into a lovely thing we do together and I have no plans to stop even now.

My DS is 2.5 now and has just recently started actually listening to the story.

Until recently, board books and flap books were much better. All the Rod Campbell books were big hits here.

I’d read the first bit, and then he’d open the flap and shout “elephant”. So it was turn taking rather than constant shouting.

My son is almost 2 and loves books but definitely isn't interested in sitting quietly listening to a story. We go through the pages and point out the interesting bits in the pictures, I ask him questions like what colour is that? Or what noise does that make? If it's before bed, we say goodnight to every toy and animal we see on every page, that sort of thing.

This is brilliant, my two year old also does this. She’s a chatterbox and talks ALL the way through the book. We don’t even make it to the end half of the time! I let her talk through it until she says she’s all done and then put the book away.