Long before we focus on children and reading, we need to make sure children have the rich vocabularies they need to get ready to learn to read There are clear connections between reading aloud and success in reading. Learning to read is incremental. Children need to be familiar with letters, words, & sounds.
Reading success is based on three concepts:
1. Knowing the letters and sounds of the alphabet.
2. Understanding print concepts: letters make up words and words have meaning.
3. Words are made up of sound chunks that can be identified.
These skills are developed when we regularly read aloud.
Reading and talking about colors, numbers, letters, & pictures are a natural and easy way for children to learn language. Vocabulary development by age 3 has been found to predict reading success. For toddlers, using a book to point and identify words is how we help a child learn to name the world. It is an enormous cognitive development. 
One is a Snail Ten is a Crab by April Pulley Sayre is an enormously fun and amusing counting book. You can’t help but be entertained and charmed by this clever counting book.
