From an early age, children benefit your reading to them. They can learn from the sound of your voice and from looking at pictures. When they become toddlers, they will learn to hold the book the way you hold it, and they may pretend to read by turning the pages and babbling or repeating words. This "pretend reading" is actually an emergent reading skill. Using books as a learning tool, your toddler is practicing looking at a book from left to right and turning pages, and he is beginning to understand that the spoken word is linked to what he sees on the page. Books are one of the most important learning tools for developing literacy and language.
Toys such as blocks, stacking cups and rings, chunky puzzles and balls help your infant and toddler learn motor skills, or how to move their muscles. In infancy, rings and other toys that are easy to grip are best. Your baby may practice holding onto a toy, and passing it from hand to hand. Your baby may also practice bringing toys to his mouth and picking up a dropped toy. Your toddler will be able to stack blocks and rings, bang toys together and put toys inside each other. Your toddler will be working on fine and gross motor skills, or small and large muscle skills. Blocks and chunky puzzles teach toddlers about spatial relationships, or how things relate to each other in terms of their sizes and shapes and the space they use.
Toys that provide sensory integration are important learning tools for both infants and toddlers. Sensory stimulation may come from music, lights, tactile sensation or movement. Toys that play music teach rhythm and language to infants and toddlers. Toys that have tactile sensations to experience teach toddlers to use their sense of touch to find out about the world around them. Some books have pages that allow toddlers to feel the pictures, for example: a soft chicken, a smooth egg and a bumpy lizard. Toys that light up can introduce color to infants and reinforce colors for toddlers. Often toys that light up can be a tool to teach cause and effect to toddlers, because the toddler may have to push the button to cause the lights to flash. Toys that have moving parts can encourage problem solving skills in toddlers as they try and figure out how to get the toy to work. The moving parts can also stimulate infants, and as an added bonus, watching lights and moving parts on toys strengthens a baby's eyesight.
Music develops language in infants and toddlers because it provides opportunities for them to hear words used over and over. Repetition is key when acquiring language, as is comprehensible input -- language taught at the learner's level of understanding. The more comprehensible input that babies and toddlers receive, the more their language will grow. Toddlers will also benefit from songs because they offer a way for toddlers to remember facts and learn proper pronunciation of words. Songs about colors, letters and days of the week are just a few examples of songs that teach concepts to toddlers. Music is also important in forming neural connections in the brain, so exposing your infant and toddler to music aids in learning and cognitive development.