Check out our early literacy tips to help your child develop a love of reading!
Reading with your child offers a wonderful bonding opportunity while also encouraging a lifelong love of reading.
Through this simple task, you can help them develop strong early language and literacy skills that will become the foundation for their future learning and success.
To help you and your child get the most out of your storytime, here are 12 early literacy tips from our early learning experts at Start Early and our Educare Chicago school:
While it may seem simple, reading to your child as early as possible can help kickstart their literacy skillsets. Reading to babies is important for healthy brain development and lays the foundation for language and writing skills.
By age 1, babies are using their hands to grab, grasp and play with everything, including books. Board and cloth books are great options for babies who like to touch things and put everything in their mouths. By using board and cloth books instead of traditional books, you can let your baby explore without hurting themself or ruining the book.
Reading with passion is not only fun, it also helps your child focus and better absorb what you are reading to them. Using inflection and maintaining the same highs and lows in your voice at the same point in a story helps your child begin to remember the words, building their language and literacy skills.
By age 2, toddlers can hold a book and point at the pictures. To encourage their engagement, let your toddler turn the pages of a board book and actively respond to them when they point or react to the story you’re reading together.
As you read to your child, make the experience interactive by asking them questions, such as “What do you think will happen next?” “What was your favorite part of the story? Why?” Adding intentional interactions as you read helps your child develop their listening and comprehension skills.
Reading to your child is a crucial way to help them develop literacy skills. Think of it as the same level of importance as naptime and bedtime and incorporate it into your daily routine.
By age 3, children can complete sentences in familiar stories. Read their favorite books over and over to help them learn words, phrases and even reading skills through repetition and memorization.
By age 4, children begin recognizing letters. Point out words in a book that begin with the same letter to your preschooler to help them become familiar with the letter and begin to associate certain words with that letter.
By age 5, children can sit still for longer books and can create their own stories based on the pictures. Ask your preschooler to tell you the basic plot of the book or to make up stories based on what is on each page. This helps your child work on their reading comprehension skills and prompts them to exercise their imagination.
Seeing you read can be a powerful tool to signal to your child the importance of learning and loving reading. Let your child see you reading your books to model what a love of reading looks like and to encourage your child to develop their own love of reading.
Reading to your child helps them develop a habit of listening to stories and loving books. One of the most important pieces of advice is to make sure you are reading to your child early and often.
No matter how old your child is — from babies to toddlers to preschoolers — these tips will help you capitalize on this valuable time with your child, making reading a fun, educational and memorable experience for both of you.
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