My wife used to explain the grocery shopping to our kids when they were babies. "Let's go get tomatoes, OK? What else do we need?" and so on, as a running commentary. They were babies, so they couldn't answer of course.

I would feel stupid doing that, even if I see the benefits, but I enjoyed reading out loud to them, because then you have a script to follow. I wouldn't read "Dog - Apple - Ball" children books, but stuff I wanted to read anyway, just to get them used to hearing my voice, the speech rhythm, and the vocabulary.