| |
Early Literacy, Get Your Child Ready to Read
My Early Literacy section contains several Every Child Ready to Read brochures from the Public Library Association. A few weeks ago I was in a workshop offered by the local library. It was essentially the explanation of the brochure.
What I like most about the workshop is that it gives me real examples on how to get my child ready to read. Examples on books to read and how to get the most out of a book, games to play, rhymes and songs.
So here is my notes from the workshop.
Early Literacy Workshop for Parent of 4 - 5 year olds
What is Early Literacy ?
Early Literacy is what children know about reading and writing BEFORE they can actually read and write.
The most important point in getting children ready to read is to have it fun. Parent involvement is critical since parents are the number one teacher.
The librarian was an ex-teacher and she said even in Kindergarten, it was obvious that kids who had been exposed to books were ready to get into books and learning. On the other hand, children who had not, didn't really know what to do with books. That was obvious from day one.
Explanation of the six pre-reading skills that can be taught from birth are (as in the brochure) :
- Print Motivation
- Definition : child's interest and enjoyment of books
- To do : find books that speaks to your child's interest and share them (read together) often
- Book example : Walking through the jungle by Julie Lacome. It's a great book since it is very simple, it involves making noises, and kids get to guess what's coming on the next page. Very fun indeed !
- Non fiction books are also good if they speak to the child's interest. My son is interested in trucks and firefighters so he loves any book about them. At the moment he is interested in animals so we've been reading books about butterfly, spiders, penguins, tigers, etc. I can't help being proud of the questions that he asks. Really difficult questions but it shows me how he thinks
- Vocabulary
- Definition : knowing the specific names of things (ie. it is easier for a child to read the word 'carrot' if he/she already knows what a carrot is)
- To do : use lots of different words in everyday conversation
- Example : put on your shoes (or boots, snickers, slippers, galoshes etc.)
- Book example : The Napping House by Audrey Wood has about 10 vocabs for sleep, built right into the story naturally so children broaden their vocabulary without realizing it. I love this book, not only for the simple story and the vocab building, but the illustration are just sweet and pretty
- This is definitely my own early literacy goal since we're bilingual and we really need to expand our vocab
- Narrative Skills
- Definition : being able to tell or retell a story
- Narrative skills help with comprehensive and language development
- To do : tell stories together with your child, encourage pretend play, ask them what they did at the park today (and don't forget to give them time to answer. Kids take a little more time to answer our questions so don't bombard them without giving them time to answer)
- Book example : Whistle for Willie by Ezra Jack Keats. The texts in this books are small they're almost hidden. So it's good to just look at the drawings with your children and ask them what's going on. Let them tell the story. Encourage that by asking questions like 'What's this boy doing ? Why is he sad ?'. It's okay to not follow the story
- Print Awareness
- Definition : noticing prints, knowing how to handle books
- To do : let children hold the book and turn the pages while reading together
- Letter knowledge
- Book example : Chicka chicka boom boom
- There are a lot of alphabet books nowadays, some with a theme like Construction Alphabet, Firefighter Alphabet. So you can do introduce letters to your children with a theme that interests them
- Do letter hunt as you read a book. You can do this anytime, anywhere. My son loves the "Letter, letter everywhere" song that the librarian has taught us
- Talk alphabet of the day. For example, for a "B" day you could say "Bo, bow bare bou boday ? (So, how are you today) Bhat bould bou bike bor breakfast ? (What would you like for breakfast)." Be silly. This could be very challenging indeed but it would be so much fun
- Phonological Awareness
- Definition : ability to learn or play with the smaller sounds of words
- To do : sing songs or rhymes
- Play the phonemes game. This is how you do it
- Find a picture of an object that has 2 phonemes (eg apple, zebra, airplane, table, water, etc.)
- Cut the picture in 2. So now you can say "A - pple" while separating the two pieces of cards
- Ze - bra, wa - ter, ta - ble. Emphasize on the different sounds of the words while holding each piece of the picture
- For more advanced, more fun games, mix up all the pieces of cards. So you have things like "Ze - pple" (mixing the first piece of zebra and the second piece of apple), "Wa - ble (water and table)" and so on
To read the brochures from Public Library Association, go to
|
