By Jennifer Landrieu, Director
This week I spent some time with the MOMS Club of Bridgewater West discussing how to help your child LOVE reading! We talked about what children hear and see in their daily environments and how parents can encourage their children’s abilities through simple activities every day.
How do you pass along a love of reading and support literacy in early childhood?
- Read to, with, and around your child.
– read to them every day, help them read, let them see you read - Read it again, and again, and again… and again!!
– repetition helps children make connections to text - Read it and experience it together.
– read about animals and visit the zoo, read about the butterfly life cycle and hatch butterflies (The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle is a great one for Preschoolers!) - Use your child’s name.
– sing it, write it, discuss the letters in it, get a CD with your child’s name incorporated into songs - Play with puppets!
– have conversations, act out scenarios, sing songs, rhyme words - Write.
– make paper and writing utensils available, encourage them to write stories about their pictures - Talk about letters.
– identify, trace, create, and say them - Talk about it.
– talk about everything – what you see, hear, experience, your child will learn about language from listening to you