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Quantity of books for preschooler?
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We are blessed to have a large (and growing!) selection of books for our very young children, in addition to the books we bring home from the library each week. (They are all “living” books, no twaddle, most of the books listed on this website and others like it.) We have books in every room our family spends time in, and our son is always “reading.” I’m curious, though, if it is possible to have too much of a good thing? I’ve heard of some families rotating their books and only having a set amount on the shelves at any given time, to allow for kids to develop deeper relationships with those books and not feel overwhelmed. Any suggestions based on your experiences with the preschool age group?
I don’t think this sounds like too much, especially for a preschooler. We have all of our books accessible. I think it is just fine. Now if he seemed overwhelmed and not able to choose, I’d say scale back. But if is taking it all in, let him “read”!
We have a lot of books too, and I’ve managed to rid our shelves of most all of the twaddle. DD does still have a few books that are princess-type books, but they are readers at least. DS has a few cars readers too.
I say, there’s no such thing as too many books! (Just the wrong kinds of books.
) My 3yo loves books, too, and so do all 3 of his older sisters. My kids are constantly reading if they’re not playing or running around outside. BTW, they tend to read the same books over and over again, regardless of the amount of books in their reach (and they are pretty much all within reach).I would agree that if they are all ‘good’ books and he enjoys them that there is no problem to just keep them there. We’ve moved internationally twice in the last two years so have had to weed out TONS of stuff, but the picture books for our preschoolers is one of the top things that we have kept, despite the amount of luggage weight they take up. Personally, I think a love of books and reading is one of the best gifts we can give our little ones. =)
Jen
I’m wondering the same thing, but so far, I haven’t noticed a negative reaction to so many book choices. However, the overwhelming amount of trucks is kind of crazy! Lol.
We have about 60 books, and just like one of the other comments, he still prefers to read a select few all the time. (As in, about 10 of the books) Just watch your children, and see how they respond to picking out of such a large selection. Good luck!!! 🙂
We have a ton of books, too. The only ones I rotate are the seasonal or holiday-related books. I take those out at the appropriate time of year.
I don’t think you should worry about the number of books, just think about it as a library your children can access daily.
I began logging all my kids’ books when my oldest was about 6 mo. old. We had almost 2K toddler-to-early elementary books; since learning about CM, I’ve eliminated about 600 I consider twaddle. Some were from my childhood, some we purchased, but most were hand-me-downs from the 9 older cousins. We have read almost all the books, including the twaddle, to my DS(3), and he loves everything. He’ll have a favorite for a week or two – sometimes three, then he’ll pull a different set of books out and decide they’re his new favorites. My other DS(21mo) is starting to really appreciate the books too! He also has his favorites that change a little over time. They both love to look through their bookcase and pull out a new or forgotten book to be read anew.
There doesn’t seem to be any ill effect from the massive reading material (they still spend 3-4 hours outside daily). I think the varied reading has increased their attention spans, language skills, and active vocabularies. We read to DS(3) about an hour every night and he’d keep going if his eyes would stay open; his active vocabulary is around 6K words, he uses complex sentences, and averages 10 words per sentence. We read to DS(21mo) about 30 min. per day. His active vocabulary is over 1K words and speaks as well as most 3 year olds. We are even able to read some pretty complicated books to both now. We just finished James Herriot’s Treasury for Children; the younger still nurses and loved hearing about the baby animals nursing from their mothers.
I have completely lost count of how many books we have. Getting them organized and catalogued is on my “to-do” list for this next year! I think I remember reading that CM thought it better for children to have a few good books, rather than a whole bunch of them, but I’m thinking she was referring to “living” over “twaddle”? The many, many mamas here who know more than I do can probably quote her better. Either way, I have noticed that my youngers always seem to have their few “favorites” at any given time anyway, so it isn’t like they are having 50 books thrown at them every day. My 3yo has his 2-4 favorites, and they seem to change every few weeks or so. I can’t explain why, but I just find that so amazing and such a thrill to watch!
) My 3yo loves books, too, and so do all 3 of his older sisters. My kids are constantly reading if they’re not playing or running around outside. BTW, they tend to read the same books over and over again, regardless of the amount of books in their reach (and they are pretty much all within reach).
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