Read It! Play It! for Babies and Toddlers by the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio

Important Advisory:

We are now requiring companies to provide us with documentation that their products have been tested by an independent lab for phthalates and lead.

We are requiring products submtted going forward to: (1) Follow the guidelines of the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation that products contain no more than trace amounts of lead (as defined by the AAP as 40 parts per million); and (2) contain no phthalates.

However, as we are not a lab, we will not be independently verifying those results. Also, with the exception of the 2008 Platinum Toy Awards, toys submitted for review prior to January 2008 were not tested for lead..

Safety Recalls: Given the absence of more stringent federal legislation, we encourage consumers to keep up to date on safety recalls. Sign up for CPSC safety email alerts. Click here.

Instructions for submitting product to the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio for review.

Contact the Toyportfolio @ (212) 598-0502 or by email at Webmaster@Toyportfolio.com.

Copyright 1995-2008. Oppenheim Toy Portfolio - All Rights Reserved. Oppenheim Toy Portfolio, Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Award, and Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Blue Chip Award are Registered Trademarks of the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio.

Reading Right from the Start

Expert Tips To Encourage A Life Long Love Of Reading

Research has told us for years that if you want your child to become a reader the best possible thing you can do is read to your child. Even before they can speak, babies and toddlers are ready to listen to stories and look at books.

In fact, sharing books, from the start is the best way to build a lifelong love of books and reading. Children who are read to daily not only have bigger vocabularies-they become better readers. The problem for many parents new to the baby/toddler world is knowing which books to bring home to kids under three and how to best build on those experiences.

Here are FIVE TIPS for making your child a book lover:

Read to your baby daily. You don't need to wait for bedtime.
Put the books in an easy to get to location…a basket of books on a special low shelf allows for “independent reading”.
Provide sturdy books that toddlers can handle with ease.
Be a reader. Children who see their parents read for pleasure are more likely to do the same.
Make your home a print friendly environment. Engage your child with different types of reading materials such as board books, picturebooks, interactive books, magazines, etc.

Although it is a well-known fact that reading daily is key to developing the reading habit, statistics show that less than half of all infants are read to every day. It's also true that a child from a low-income family enters kindergarten with a listening vocabulary of 3,000 words, while a child of a middle-income family enters with a listening vocabulary of 20,000 words. Literacy does not wait for school…it begins in the nursery!

As part of the Read It! Play It! Literacy Initiative, Oppenheim Toy Portfolio will donate $1 to Reading Is Fundamental for every copy sold of Read It! Play It! with Babies and Toddlers. For more information about RIF programs, visit www.rif.org. We are also pleased to announce that LeapFrog Enterprise s is generously making possible a donation of 10,000 copies of the book to Reading Is Fundamental.

The book will also be published later this month in Spanish, ¡A leer y jugar! con bebés y niños pequeños.

Order your book today on line by clicking here.

Group and bulk orders may be made by contacting stephanie@toyportfolio.com.

You can also order the original, Read It! Play It! (for children 3-8).