How Parents Can Encourage Literacy in Young Children

We all have heard that "readers are leaders". The seeds of literacy development that are planted early in a child's life can bloom and flourish into a bountiful garden with a simple steps.

By the Kindergarten Teachers of District #36

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Can we read it again? Is this a familiar question in your household? We hope it is. To adults, reading the same dog-eared story over and over can be repetitive, but this is a necessary part of a child's early experience with books. Children of all ages enjoy the intimacy and warm fuzzies that come from reading with a loved one. The path to literacy begins with you singing, cuddling, reciting nursery rhymes, recalling stories from your youth, and sharing a treasured book from your childhood.

As a team of kindergarten teachers, we are offering our prescription to help your child become a lifelong reader:

• Beginning in infancy, your face-to-face interactions help to promote oral language development. This may include cooing, singing, and speaking, as well as responding to their attempts at language.

• Reciting nursery rhymes and doing fingerplays introduce your child to the rhythm and patterns of language.

• Converse with your child. Listen and respond to what your child has to say. This is modeling conversational skills.

• Read and reread to your child. Pick a special place and a special time where reading will be celebrated and not rushed. Reading stories promotes positive attitudes towards books. It introduces children to the form and structure of the written language.

• Choose books that are of interest to your child. It is important to include your child in the decision-making. The selection of books should include fiction, non-fiction, poetry, etc.
  

• Be understanding of your child's wish to hear a favorite book again and again. Children continually learn from the repeated reading of their special stories because it helps them to become aware of sound patterns; it gives them the opportunities for predicting the outcome; and it allows for the recognition of seeing familiar words.

• Discuss stories. This mutual enjoyment and important interaction helps to build comprehension and a sense of story structure.

• Tell family stories. It is the emotional richness of the treasured memory that will encourage your child to share his/her ideas and experiences. This will also act as a motivating key for your child's interest in seeing these special stories in print and will more than likely be the first stories he/she chooses to read.

• Storybooks are not the only means of providing your child with exposure to written language. Children learn about reading from environmental print (labels, signs, and other kinds of print they see around them everyday). Therefore, provide opportunities for cooking (following recipes), grocery shopping (making a list, finding products), taking walks and car trips (noticing street signs), going to museums, drawing children's attention to letters and their associated sounds, and to the written word.

• Read in front of your child. Be a role model and let him/her witness the pleasure you receive when you read.

• Have books easily accessible for your child--a basket of books in different rooms, a backpack for books in the car. Every room provides an opportunity to encourage reading. Early childhood audio story and musical tapes as well as videos are also recommended for sharing with your child.
  

• Provide opportunities to create books. Have paper, markers, pencils, crayons, stapler, tape, and scissors located in areas that children have easy access to.

• Visit the library regularly. It is a good place to promote early literacy.

• Play rhyming games, sing songs, chant fingerplays, and recite poetry. These help your child to make connections to his/her beginning literacy.
  

• Provide opportunities and materials to engage your child in dramatic play and puppetry. This helps to expand your child's vocabulary, imagination, and creativity.

Reading is a time for connecting with your child. Turn off the TV, ignore the phone, and snuggle up with your child in a cozy spot. In other words, delight in the wonders that shared reading provides. Engage your child's active attention by expanding on his/her comments, provoking the different possibilities and the thoughtful ending alternatives that can occur. The shared reflections between you and your child of how the story evolved builds a foundation for his own future story writing. After all, 'print' is talk written down. The story conversations you have and the playing with letters and connected sounds afford your child the opportunities to experiment with writing. It is through these meaningful experiences that the child's curiosity of print brings relevancy to his/her world and literacy within his/her reach.