Ongoing Practice

Supporting young readers and writers at home is an important aspect to building a strong foundation for literacy. Parents can help in a variety of ways:

• Read to your child, no matter how old the child may be. Reading stories aloud gives children the opportunity to think, visualize and really get into a story. Through listening and talking about a text, higher level thinking can be the focus. The added bonus - it makes reading fun and fosters enjoyment!

• Read nightly. Reading every day supports the lessons learned at school and helps to build students transfer of what is taught in the classroom into their repertoire of skills.

• Play with words by stretching them out and having your child blend together. Have them sound out words and you can guess the word.

• Practice rhyming and creating rhyming words.

• Play I Spy..."I spy a word that starts with the sound /t/" Your child may find a "traffic light, etc." I'm thinking of a letter that makes the sound /m/

• Talk!!! Oral language plays a leading role in children' s literacy development. Talking about everything builds conversational skills, which then in turn becoming writing and reading skills!

• Write. Make writing a useful task by making lists, menus, jotting notes for family members, etc.