ON READING

Regularly read and tell stories to your children. Share the joy of reading with them. Use expression to emphasize the characters, their roles, their emotions, their feelings, their accents.

Value the everyday interaction and enjoyment that accompanies reading together. Use the “lap-reading” approach to make early reading very personal and pleasurable.

Adopt the practice of letting your children choose the book they want you to read to them even if it is the same one night after night. Borrow or buy books about topics and characters your children are interested in.

Echo-read a story, that is, as your child reads, you say the words a fraction of time after them.

Read, re-read and re-read your children’s favourite stories as many times as they choose.

Encourage your children to retell a story you have read to them.

Encourage your child to use the pictures in a book to predict the story focus.

Encourage your child to hypothesise or imagine what the text might say, i.e. what the story in a new book is about from the cover, the title and other illustrations and pictures.

Encourage your child to look through and read supermarket and retailer brochures, menus, fliers, leaflets and advertising material, as well as colourful, picture magazines. As they read, talk to them and ask about the products they find, e.g. naming the fruit, household goods, different food items and products that are pictured. Also, have them find logos and symbols.

Use pictures in brochures, fliers and general advertising material to develop the one-on-one correspondence link between the known name of something e.g. a “chair” and “what it is,” “how it is pronounced,” and the word used for its name.

Apply simple Literacy Learning techniques such as using “Peter Pointer” (finger) to show how one reads from (a) the left to the right (b) the top to the bottom in English.

Have your child create a favourite Picture -Word scrapbook from the pictures and words in the advertising material mentioned above.

IDEAS FOR AROUND THE HOME:

* Use “ownership” word labels / cards (based on core combinations and syllables) around the home, especially in the child’s own area, e.g. b ed fl oor win dow ta ble ch air t oys

* Use Story Strips on cards, e.g. This is Julie’s bed. I sit in this chair. My cat is called Boxie.

* Make use of magnetic labels, calendars and other stick-ons on the refrigerator, metal cabinets

* Have a home message board where messages, family tasks, shopping lists and as well items of interest to your children can be displayed by them and other members of the family.

ON WRITING

When writing words for your children - except for people’s names - always use lower case alphabetical symbols (letters) for ordinary words as this leads to learning cursive writing.

Only use capitals for the start of words that are important, e.g. the names of family members, people’s names, known places, e.g. streets, suburbs, towns, etc. e.g. Bella NOT BELLA or bella
Use sentence starters for your children to write about something they can see, feel, or like, e.g.

I can see a .................
My friend is .................... ..............
This is ...................... .........................
Our house .................
I live ........................
That is my ...................

Encourage your child to write and draw special messages, e.g. “I love Mommy and Daddy,” birthday cards, e.g. etc.

Verbally and visually build on known “base: words, e.g. “cat” to “cats,” “farm” to “farmer”, etc.

Encourage the building of personal word lists recording them in a My Special Words booklet – e.g. the names of all their toys, family members, things around the house, favorite food, shopping lists, things they like to do, etc.

THE BOOKS

Buy books that use rhyme, repetition and related pictures. Select colourful picture books , animal characters, known themes: home, family, holidays, etc. Choose classic favourites, e.g. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, The Little Mermaid and The Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen, The Tale Of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter, etc.

Buy some audio – read along books to give your child the opportunity to listen and look when reading.
Beware of books that teach incorrectly, e.g. a book teaching the “a”, “s” and “c” sounds using “aeroplane”, “ship”, “chips” wrongly as examples of their regular sounds.