Early Literacy TIps

Resourced From Librarian Lisa's Blog  http://lisasstorytimes.blogspot.com/

Early Literacy Tip of the Week: Helping your child to put words to feelings develops vocabulary in a meaningful way. You can talk not only about your child’s feelings but about yours as well. Children can understand the words long before they can say them. (from The Early Literacy Kit by Betsy Diamant-Cohen and Saroj Nadkarni Ghoting)

Early Literacy Tip of the Week: When you play with toys with your baby have fun making noises for the toys, like truck noises, baby doll noises or animal noises. Learning different noises with various pitches, tones and volumes helps your baby develop the basics of language.

Early Literacy Tip – There are five gifts you can give your child that will help your child become a great reader and learner. The gifts are: talking, singing, reading, writing and playing. Share these gifts with your child during the holidays and all through the year.

Early Literacy Tip – It’s great to tell and read favorite stories over and over again. Repetition helps your child learn. Each time your child hears a story he or she notices new things. They also become more and more familiar with the structure and sequence of stories.

Early Literacy Tip of the Week: We often do bounce rhymes in Book Babies. Bounce rhymes provide several positive experiences for babies. The steady beat with the whole body lets babies feel the rhythm of language with their bodies. The physical contact of an adult and baby also reinforces positive emotions. And bouncing is joyful and fun! The way you bounce a baby will change over time. When you bounce a young baby you will do it very gently and make sure the baby’s head is supported, as the baby gets older you can make the bounces bigger and bouncier but always remember to do what feels safe for your baby.

Early Literacy Tip – Singing a lullaby while holding your child and rocking together is a great way to help him relax. Knowing how to take time out and relax is very important. Sharing quiet moments with your child builds a relaxation routine for both of you. Next time your child has a temper tantrum, try rocking him to a lullaby and see how quickly he calms down. (from The Early Literacy Kit by Betsy Diamant-Cohen and Saroj Nadkarni Ghoting)

Early Literacy Tip of the Week: Learning to read doesn’t begin in school. It begins will all of your baby’s experiences and interactions with you. Listening to your voice, babbling and learning to talk are experiences that help your baby learn about language. These language skills lay the foundation for reading. 

Early Literacy Tip of the Week: Keep photo albums or scrapbooks of family events. As you look through them with your baby, tell the story of what happened using a beginning, middle and end. (from http://read.denverlibrary.org/baby_narr.html) 

Early Literacy Tip of the Week: If your fluent language is not English, speak to your baby in the language that you are fluent in. This allows you to use a larger vocabulary than you might be able to use in English. http://read.denverlibrary.org/baby_vocab.html

Early Literacy Tip of the Week: Explain to your child the things you are doing as you are doing them (for example, “Look! I’m answering the phone – let’s see who it is!”). The more you talk with your child, the richer your child's vocabulary will be. (http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/libtmpl.asp?url=/content/libraries/earlyliteracy/babytips.asp)

 Early Literacy Tip – From ages 2-5, expect your child to ask many questions and learn to take turns speaking. Having conversations, listening, and following your child’s lead is one of the best ways to increase vocabulary and comprehension skills. This helps your child get ready to read. (www.everychildreadytoread.org)

Early Literacy Tip –Counting books and counting rhymes do many things to help children. They not only help with counting and numbers, they also help with early literacy. The sequence of counting books and rhymes helps children learn sequences skills that develop narrative skills. Narrative skills are a basic foundation for learning to read.

Early Literacy Tip of the Week: One of the skills children need to develop is called narrative skills. This means a child being able to tell stories and describe things. Babies can’t tell stories yet, but you can encourage their efforts to talk. Listen patiently as your baby tries to talk and encourage your baby’s chatter and responses.

Early Literacy Tip of the Week: Learning nursery rhymes is an important literacy skill. Studies have shown that children who have memorized some nursery rhymes before they start kindergarten will be more successful in school than children who do not know nursery rhymes.  

Early Literacy Tip – Show your child print in everyday life. Point out words on signs, on menus, in newspapers and in books.