By Chrysta Naron
Letters are keys for children to unlock the written world, and their futures. They’re also shapes—complicated ones. Teaching your child to see and form these important lines and curves will set them on the path to reading. Yet all those letters can look a whole lot alike to young kids. This crafty early literacy activity helps even the youngest kids, who can’t yet write with a pencil, distinguish and remember letters.
This easy project leverages the power of talking about letters and breaking them down to their parts. Discussing, describing, and dissecting each letter’s unique shape helps kids identify (and recreate) these all-important symbols. Pointing out how straight or curved lines come together in a particular letter draws kids’ attention to the details necessary to tell them apart. This easy at-home letter-learning activity is great for doing that in a fun, tactile way.
This activity is a twist on classic playdough letters, but with two important changes: We’ll write each letter in front of our children, giving them the chance to observe how we hold a pen and move it across the paper to form the letter. And we’ll use craft sticks to highlight the difference between the straight and curved lines that form our alphabet.
Materials Needed:
- Craft sticks
- Playdough
- Marker
- Paper
- Gallon sandwich bags
Cost: $6 for a bag of craft sticks, sandwich bags, and a container of playdough
Step 1: Write some uppercase letters on a piece of paper. Make them quite large, one letter per page. You will be laying craft sticks over the letters, so you can use the length of a stick for a guide as to size.
Tip: Starting with the letters in your child’s name will get extra buy-in, as children are drawn to their own name. Talk to your child as you create each letter: Say the name and describe its attributes. For example, if you write the letter A, you might say “This is the letter A. It has two lines that touch like a mountain and one line that goes across the middle, like a bridge.”
Step 2: Slide each letter into its own gallon sandwich bag. This allows you to roll playdough all over the letters without destroying the paper on each use.
Step 3: Select a letter that is all straight lines, such as A, L, M, or X. Point to the lines and explain that some letters are tall and strong, so they need strong and tall lines, just like craft sticks. Demonstrate how to create the letter by laying craft sticks over the written letter. Invite your child to try.
Note: I noticed that when my students try to create letters with just dough, certain letters sag that should sit straight. Adding craft sticks allows them to create a better likeness for each letter, enhancing the learning.
Step 4: Select a letter that is completely round, such as O, C, or U. Roll out a long snake-like piece of playdough. Explain that some letters are soft and round, so we’re making them with something soft and round (dough). Show your kiddo how to create the letter by shaping the playdough onto the letter. Invite your child to try this, too.
Tip: Depending on their level, you might have to make the playdough strips for them. But this is also a great chance to develop those fine motor skills!
Step 5: Choose a letter with straight and curved elements, like D, P, or B. Explain that some letters are both tall and round, so we need craft sticks and playdough. Use both materials to create the letter, letting your child show you where they think the sticks and dough should go.
Step 6: Let your child take the lead! Get all the letters together and ask prompting questions while they create each letter. What’s the name of this letter? Do you know any words or names that start with this letter? How are you going to make it? Let them try to form the letters as independently as possible.
Our world is made up of letters, and one day your child’s letters might make up the world. So let’s get started—today!
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By Maya Payne Smart
More and more students enter school with no knowledge of classic nursery rhymes, primary school teachers report. Some traditional poems like Baa Baa Black Sheep passed from generation to generation for centuries, but they hold markedly less appeal for today’s parents. Indeed, many parents admit not recalling the nursery rhymes of their youth, let alone teaching them to their kids. And this has some educators, researchers, and early childhood experts worried.
Heightened scrutiny of the lyrics and origins of traditional songs plus competition from flashier child entertainment options contribute to the decline. Some of the classic tunes have undeniably racist roots, and conscious parents don’t want to pass their offensive themes and imagery on to a new generation. Other rhymes just feel dated and of uncertain value to younger parents. Going on about an old woman who lived in a shoe seems no more enriching than bopping along to Baby Shark.
But nursery rhyme defenders insist that the vast repertoire of traditional songs (offensive titles excluded) present unparalleled opportunities to foster sought-after early literacy skills, easily, enjoyably, and affordably. I’m inclined to agree. Here’s a rundown of the top reasons to add nursery rhymes—classic, remixed, or brand new—to your daily parenting routines.
Brain Development
Professor Usha Goswami, director of the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Neuroscience in Education, says four key caregiver behaviors help babies acquire language:
- making eye contact
- speaking in exaggerated, sing-song tones
- responsiveness to the infants’ actions, movements, and verbalizations
- taking turns in “conversation” (even before kids can truly talk).
Nursery rhymes incorporate all four behaviors and therefore play a vital role in children’s earliest development. When parents gaze at a baby, gently grasp her big toe, sing this little piggy went to market, then pause for a coo or babble in response, they are sending communicative, brain-building signals that even a newborn can recognize and learn from.
The regular cadence, plus the rhymes’ rise and fall, provide “the perfect rhythmic template for the developing brain,” Goswami says. When sung, the traditional tunes move air molecules and create waves of sound pressure at rates that align well with the way brain cells in the auditory cortex move, she told The Times Educational Supplement. The deliberate, rhythmically regular speech exaggerates the signal in ways that help the developing brain convert sound into neural signals and make sense of language.
Word Learning
Baby language proceeds from grunts to coos to babbles, often not arriving at anything resembling recognizable speech until a child is ten months or older. But evidence suggests infants understand their first word (often their own name) as young as four months old. The median vocabulary size at 16 months is 55 words and jumps to ten times that by 30 months. And the talking, singing, or reading of caregivers introduced each and every one.
Toddlers typically hear thousands of words a day, which includes any nursery rhymes their parents sing. If it weren’t for repeated recitations of Little Miss Muffett, I wouldn’t have learned the words tuffet, curds, and whey for years, if ever. But long before kindergarten, I picked up this unusual vocabulary and held a mental picture of a little girl seated on a stool eating something like cottage cheese.
Research confirms it wasn’t only the repetition that aided my word learning, but the power of the rhyme itself. Rhymes encourage kids to anticipate upcoming words and that active curiosity about what’s coming next makes new vocabulary more memorable, hypothesizes researcher Kirsten Read. The building anticipation and extra predictability of a rhyming word at the end of a stanza may heighten kids’ attention and thereby help the new words stick.
Phonological Awareness
As adults, it’s easy to look at a word like cat, see its three letters, and associate them with three distinct sounds. But that’s a learned perception. In speech, the /c/, /a/, and /t/ sounds in cat are all blurred together. Kids have to learn to discern where one sound ends and the next one begins.
Nursery rhymes support future reading by heightening kids’ sensitivity to the syllables and the separate beginning, middle and ending sounds within words. The stress patterns of classics like Jack and Jill went up the hill help children learn about rhymes, an important phonological dimension. And the alliteration in a rhyme like Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers accentuates the /p/ sound and helps it stand out from surrounding sounds, a finer-grained level of sound sensitivity.
Fine Motor Skills
Kids need to develop the tiny muscles in their hands and fingers to hold a crayon, pen, or pencil and learn to write. Parents can take a cue from children’s librarians and preschool teachers and use “fingerplays”—songs and rhymes acted out with hands and fingers alone. From hand-clapping to the tune of Pat-A-Cake with a baby to the more delicate pinching movements and wrist turns of the Itsy Bitsy Spider crawling up the water spout, these classic interactive rhymes boost kids’ fine motor skills and eye-hand coordination.
See this great video demo from Ms. Melissa, a children’s librarian with the Austin Public Library.
Did you learn nursery rhymes as a kid? Will you carry on the tradition?
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By Kelsey Nickerson
Why buy a pencil case when you can make your own in a few simple steps? Duct tape comes in so many fun patterns that you can use to create a super-cute DIY pencil case. You can even punch three holes along the bottom of your case and it will fit perfectly in a binder.
Once you get the hang of cutting the duct tape, this DIY pencil case craft will not take long at all. Kids might need a little help aligning the tape, but they can easily join in and create their own special, personalized bag for their school binder or backpack. It will make it so much more exciting for them to pull out a pencil for homework or to work on literacy activities at home! This could also be a great accessory to our to-go activity kit for kids.
Materials:
- One gallon-sized ziplock plastic bag
- Duct tape in a fun print or color (or multiple styles to create your own pattern)
- Ruler
- Marker
- Scissors
Optional:
- Three-hole punch or single-hole punch
- Plastic cutting mat if you have one (this makes cutting the duct tape easier, but is definitely not necessary!)
Cost: Nothing, if you have these simple supplies on hand. Otherwise, duct tape should be available from a local craft store (or there are many options on Amazon!) for a few dollars.
Step 1: Take your ruler and draw a line across the ziplock bag three inches up from the bottom. With your scissors, cut that part off.
Step 2: Next, measure and cut five pieces of duct tape, 10 ½” each. Cut them all from one roll, or cut a variety of colors/patterns to mix and match! Tip: If you have a plastic cutting mat, you can lay the tape flat on the mat, and then peel it off once you have cut your piece. I did not have a mat, so I just attached the tape to the edge of my table, measured, and cut, and I had no problem.
Step 3: Starting at the top edge of the ziplock bag, carefully attach your first piece of duct tape over the plastic of the bag and all the way across to the other side. Try to make the piece as flat as possible! Simply repeat with three more pieces of duct tape, working your way down the bag. You will want to slightly overlap the pieces of tape where the edges meet, to ensure you fully cover the bag. The last piece should hang over the bottom of the bag just a bit, so fold that part over to the other side of the bag. One side down!
Step 4: Now it’s time to cover the other side of the bag. Cut four more pieces of duct tape, this time to 12” each. Repeat the same process as the other side, again starting at the top of the bag again, but this time leave about ½” extra tape on each side and fold that over to the other side. Continue to work your way down the bag just as you did before.
Step 5: Lastly, you will want to reinforce the sides and the bottom edge of the bag with another layer of duct tape. For this, you will need two pieces that are 7 ¾” long (for the sides) and one piece that is 10 ½” long (for the bottom edge). Press and smooth the duct tape around the side and bottom edges, so it’s secure on both sides of the bag.
Step 5: Lastly, you will want to reinforce the sides and the bottom edge of the bag with another layer of duct tape. For this, you will need two pieces that are 7 ¾” long (for the sides) and one piece that is 10 ½” long (for the bottom edge). Press and smooth the duct tape around the side and bottom edges, so it’s secure on both sides of the bag.
Optional: Step 6: The very last step (if you want!) is to punch holes in the bag so that you can insert your new pencil pouch in a loose-leaf binder. If you don’t use a binder and love your pencil pouch as-is, you can completely skip this step. For those that would like to, though, simply use a three-hole punch along the bottom edge of the bag. (If you don’t have a three-hole punch, you can trace the holes from a piece of binder paper and then punch them with a regular hole punch.)
Enjoy! We can’t wait to see what fun duct tape patterns you find—there are so many colorful options to choose from.
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By Maya Payne Smart
The term “read aloud” is deceptively simple—so self-evident in meaning that it seldom inspires discussion beyond admonitions to read with feeling and do it daily. But three decades of reading research reveals that there’s much more than reading aloud going on during the best story times. And, in fact, conversation that veers off the page may be as literacy-rich as the words in print.
Caregivers use more than 20 different kinds of speech during read-alouds, ranging from pointing out objects and urging kids to pay attention, all the way to explaining words’ meanings and connecting text to personal experience. It’s not literature, but dynamic parent-child conversation packs major benefits for future reading by encouraging kids to use their voices. To maximize the literacy-boosting benefits of reading aloud, parents should recognize the range of skills it can help kids develop and hone in on whichever ability their child is currently working on. (See Three Reasons to Read Aloud to Babies.)
Getting a sense of your own read-aloud style will help you consciously adapt it to best support your child’s evolving literacy needs. For example, do you tend to read straight through a text? Or do you pause frequently to reflect out loud on what you’ve read? Do you point at words or objects? Do you ask your child about what’s happening in the story or how it relates to them? Research says the more active, verbal engagement on your child’s part, the better—and asking them questions, plus responding to theirs as you go, encourages that.
A highly interactive approach didn’t come naturally to me. I knew reading to my daughter was important and did it regularly, but I thought of it more as a recitation than a dialogue, especially before she began talking. I took my cues on what a read-aloud was supposed to be from memories of Reading Rainbow, even sharing some of the exact same titles—Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain, Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters, and Just Us Women. I brought a selection of diverse titles and my best Levar Burton voice to every reading.
My awareness that there were other, more interactive, responsive ways to read aloud (that a television show couldn’t fully convey) came from reading research studies and seeing video footage of real parent-child story time exchanges. Those examples gave me the perspective to see my style as one of many and the insight to know which elements of other approaches might benefit my daughter as she aged. It was a gift to discover that what I’d labeled distracted and off-task talk was actually the kind of smart engagement that fuels language skills and expressive ability. That it took longer to get through a story was no longer a problem once I viewed these interruptions and digressions as encouraging my child to talk, and not merely listen.
Here I’ve defined six not-particularly-scientific (but still research-backed) parent read-aloud types and offered some tips and pointers to keep in mind. See if you can spot a bit of yourself in some of the types below. I know I’ve worn several of these hats during my tenure as a parent—sometimes all in one sitting.
The Performer
This parent brings the drama. She has a voice for every character and facial expressions, too. Her intent is to captivate and immerse her listeners in the world of story. She feels successful when her child sits rapt on the edge of the seat, waiting for the page to turn and the tale to advance. She lives for spontaneous tears and laughter, the surest signs that her little listeners were moved by the reading. Her danger zone is getting so wrapped up in the performance that she forgets to pause to ask children to verbalize their ideas and reactions, missing golden opportunities to build up their voices and expand on their responses, the stuff of early language learning.
The Therapist
This parent is deeply concerned with the social-emotional dimensions of every story. He reads characters’ facial expressions more than the text, ever alert to signs of happiness, fear, or distress. He doesn’t hesitate to relate the story to real-life experience and hunt for the moral of every illustration. He’s the parent most likely to utter the phrase, This book saved my life. His approach may be enhanced from time to time by calling kids’ attention to details regarding the print itself, book organization, and the way written and spoken language connect. (See my read-aloud tips for some examples of how to do this.)
The Drill Sergeant
This commanding parent tends toward the didactic, sees a lesson on every page, and questions her kids non-stop. Where’s the bunny? What is she doing with the ball? Where’s the word sunshine? What letter is that? No characters, words, or objects escape her notice or inquisition, which is great for directing attention and creating lots of opportunities for child response. She can soften and warm her approach by letting the story breathe and leaving space to notice (and follow) the child’s own interests.
The Griot
This parent has a book in hand but scarcely consults its pages, preferring to weave riddles, parables, and narratives all his own. He invites his children to tell their tales, too, giving full attention to their creations and responding with lavish encouragement and praise. The tellings and retellings are acts of creation and of culture, if unlikely teachers of print concepts. But there’s undoubted power in capturing kids’ attention, holding space for their imaginings, and making it all fun. This type of storyteller may love to bring wordless picture books into story time. He can draw kids’ attention to features such as the book title and illustrator’s name on the cover to teach a little print awareness before going his own way.
The Listener
This parent is the picture of responsiveness. She reads with fluency and expression, but stays attuned to her child. She pauses at even the hint of an utterance from her little one, affirms that she’s heard it, and answers by pushing the dialogue (and learning) further. Open-ended questions are her specialty, and story time delivers the richest vocabulary and language learning around. This mom loves the occasion that story time creates for closeness and the conversation it inspires. Luckily, all that talk is literacy-building too. This parent may draw largely on instinct in connecting to and nurturing her little one, but she can always benefit from some gentle focus on the details of print, too—check out my read-aloud tips for kindergarten readiness for ideas.
The Baton Passer
This parent is all about taking turns and doesn’t pass up any opportunities to get kids in on the action. Even before his little one can talk, this parent says your turn and listens attentively to whatever coo or babble comes next. As his toddler ages into a preschooler, he happily accepts the child’s narration of the pictures as “reading” and keeps on trucking. In early elementary, the parent and child alternate reading pages aloud, with the dad just jumping in to correct a misread, omitted, or mispronounced word on the child’s pages. This parent will love learning more about how literacy develops, delving into topics like reading expression. Now that’s raising a reader!
Did you see elements of your own reading style in any of the descriptions above? Do you see opportunities to try some new approaches?
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All my kiddos are top notch chefs. I have eaten some of the best imaginary banana cupcakes and sand buckets filled with stew in the world. I bet you have too. So today, let’s cook up a little “edible” literacy activity for you and your little one to enjoy!
Dramatic play (aka “playing pretend”) is a very important part of child development and one of the most enjoyable parts of any day with young kids. It can be tough to ask a child to stop being a superhero in order to sit and do a worksheet or review flashcards. Making alphabet “soup” is a terrific way to incorporate both pretend play and literacy practice into one fun game. This playful activity feels fast-paced but still requires children to reflect on letters and their sounds to find the right ingredients for their “soup.” You can scale it to play one-on-one or with a group.
Read on for step-by-step instructions, plus tips on modifying the game for early letter learners or those with limited mobility.
Materials Needed:
- Large empty container
- Mixing spoons
Cost: Nothing! Just get creative with a big “pot” for your alphabet soup.
Step 1: Find a good-sized empty container, like a laundry basket or empty box. Place it in the middle of the room and give your child (or each child) a spoon. Tell them that they’re going to make alphabet soup and this container is their “pot!” They need one ingredient for every letter of the alphabet. That’s 26 things!
Tip: For children who are just learning their letters, you can make soup with a subset of letters. Start with letters the children are familiar with, including the first initial of their names, plus common letters. You can also focus on certain skills with special versions like “vowel soup.”
Step 2: The first ingredient has to start with the letter “A.” Remind your child of the different sounds the letter can make and then send them off to explore for items! Will they find an apple? An alligator? An acorn?
Step 3: Each time your child brings back an item, have them place it in the “pot” and remind them of the next letter and its sound(s). Then send them to search for the next ingredient, which will begin with the next letter in the alphabet (or in your subset of letters).
When you have all the ingredients, stir them up and try your yummy new alphabet soup!
Adaptation: If your child has limited physical mobility, another option is to place a variety of items on a table or other surface they can reach. They can direct you about which ingredient to pick up for their very special soup.
At the end of the day, what I want my students to take away with them is not only the memory of letters of the alphabet and early literacy skills, but also the memory of the joy they had while learning. Alphabet soup is a dish that provides both.
Bon appetit!
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From the pediatrician’s office to parenting magazine columns, numerous voices tout the benefits of regularly reading aloud to young children for language development. But storytime quantity is just part of the equation. How parents read to kids (not just how often) matters too, and I don’t mean the pacing and performance qualities of reading aloud. No matter how thrilling the story or a parent’s delivery, a verbatim front-to-back reading of a book leaves out critical brain-building, literacy-boosting power.
A robust body of research dating back to the 1980s positively associates interactive parent-child reading with language-development gains. This is not the one-way speech of a parent holding forth while a child sits quietly enraptured, but rather the dynamic back-and-forth volleying of questions and comments beyond what appears on the page. These little detours and digressions are golden, research shows, because they move parent and child into a realm of greater linguistic complexity and vocabulary diversity than typical conversation does. They get the child thinking, making inferences and predictions, and formulating questions and comments of their own.
Even before kids can talk, there’s tremendous benefit to asking questions and waiting for responses. An infant’s coos and babbles in response to a caregiver’s question are signs of cognitive stimulation and crucial brain architecture formation. (See The Three Best Reasons to Read Aloud to Babies for more details.)
All of this is great news! Purposeful, knowledgeable parents can move the needle for their child’s early literacy by making only minor tweaks to their storytime routines. When mindful, we can pause, point, comment, question, and otherwise elicit responses from kids to make the most of read-alouds’ literacy-building power. Here are seven research-backed ways to capture your child’s attention during storytime and give them all the vocabulary and brain boosts you can.
Point and Trace
Look at that!
The index finger is an incredibly powerful and overlooked tool for bringing kids’ attention to print. Eye-tracking studies show that when left to their own devices, children focus almost exclusively on the pictures in a book, not the lines of type. This means that simply reading—while the child examines the pictures—misses the opportunity to raise their awareness of how letters, words, and written language work. Getting in the habit of tracing your finger under lines of text as you read is a great start for directing the child’s attention. Plus, a simple call to look at a particular object or word on the page is a great tool for engagement.
Label
There’s the teddy bear! That’s a kitten!
To take things up a notch, parents can speak the name of an object while pointing to its picture, so that children begin to associate a spoken word with the image in print. Some research suggests that imagery is enormously helpful for early word learning, as evidenced by the fact that young children tend to learn nouns, which evoke a clearer visual in the mind’s eye, more readily than verbs.
Request Labels
What’s that on his head?
Asking the child to name an object on a book page instead of supplying the label for them nudges them to search their own memory bank, conjure the right word, and speak it aloud. Both practices have their place, depending upon the book’s content and the child’s age or knowledge. But placing the onus on the child to provide the name is thought to stimulate expressive vocabulary.
Ask Five WH Questions
Who has the bedtime bonnet?
What is his grandpa doing?
When will they bake the cake?
Where’s Johnny?
Why does Tamika look so excited?
Who, what, when, where, and why—plus how—questions are always great conversation starters and tend to evoke longer, richer responses than yes/no questions. In a cool naturalistic study that compared two childcare workers’ styles of reading aloud to a toddler named Charlie, there were marked differences in his response to and initiation of speech with each caregiver. He was much more verbose with Pam, who asked lots of WH-questions. Her queries prompted him to use more words and a wider variety of words describing animals, people, and objects. This observational study offers a glimpse into the ways adults’ language choices and discussion styles affect kids’ language practice and development.
Affirm and Expand
Yes, the chocolate cake looks tasty.
Some of the richness of the language that kids experience during read-alouds comes from the sophistication of the text on the page, but a good bit comes from parents’ commentary around the books. This extra talk that veers off script offers more diverse verbs and vocabulary, and lengthier stretches of speech, than recitation of the printed text alone. Plus, it gives children greater opportunity to respond with more conversational turns of their own. Seize openings to model more elaborate responses to questions, showing little ones how it’s done. For example, if a child answers a who-question with just the name Grandpa, a parent could respond with Yes, Grandpa has the pink bonnet.
Relating the Story to the Child’s Life or Experiences
Do you remember when we jumped in puddles outside?
When encouraged by adults, children as young as preschool can relate what they hear during read-alouds to their personal experiences and other books they’ve heard. This comparing and contrasting, reminiscing and reflection all present stimulating opportunities to think abstractly and express themselves.
Respond to the Child’s Questions
Countless parents have grown weary of bedtime reading and long for a quick end to storytime. The stresses of getting a child or two to sleep spawned the profane bestseller “Go the F*ck to Sleep” and a sequel, “F*ck, There Are Two of You.” One survey of more than 1,000 parents found that one-third feel so tired at the end of the day that they skim or “rush read” books to their children. And academic research across continents overwhelmingly cites time constraints as the major barrier to consistent, enjoyable reading with kids. Yet taking the time to thoughtfully respond to kids’ inquiries in the moment is powerful. They are asking because they are interested, so don’t squander a tailor-made opportunity to affirm their engagement and expand upon it. The engagement and dialogue is more important than getting to The End.
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Big eyes in little faces as they behold a trove of gifts just for them. Delivering an enticingly wrapped bundle to a loved one. Spreading holiday cheer, and letting someone know we’re thinking about them. Nothing says holiday spirit like sharing gifts, and, as the days turn colder, thoughts naturally turn to acquiring them.
All that generosity may bring joy to young and old, but it isn’t always a gift to our planet, or our pocketbooks. Creating homemade presents can be the perfect way to indulge in the best of the season while avoiding its excesses, and ones that engage children and inspire learning will bring out their best, as well.
So why not complement a few choice store-bought items with these lovely literacy-supporting DIYs? We’ve selected six cute reading- and writing-themed projects that you can make or upcycle from a few simple materials. Then let the stocking-stuffing begin!
Need to keep kids entertained on the go? This simple DIY activity kit is perfect for road trips or plane trips, for restaurants, or for anywhere kids need some distraction while they wait. (Think instant entertainment on the sidelines of big sister’s soccer game or big brother’s guitar practice!) Keep your child’s activity book stocked with crayons or markers, stickers, and index cards (or paper cut to the book’s size), so they always have entertainment at hand. You can also create mini worksheets for some extra fun and even some early literacy and math learning. For example, draw an alpha-bingo game board on one of your index cards to include in the kit. You could also make some of our word-family flowers to keep in the kit.
Filling your home with books, whether bought or borrowed, is a great way to show kids that you value family reading. And while the stories and illustrations between the covers matter most, attractively displaying the books can build excitement. I recreated the DIY Honey Bear Bookends from Pretty Providence and think they’re the perfect eye candy to bring kids’ attention to the sweet titles on your shelves.
This accordion book craft is a great one to do with kids. Not only is it easy to make a pretty little book, it’s also a fun way to encourage children to write—they’ll be eager to fill these cute pages. Plus they can wrap the covers with an original drawing or painting, a great way to give kid creations a second life. For a sweet home-literacy activity, invite children to write their own stories inside their DIY accordion book. Older kids can create a comic strip or illustrated story. For younger kids, consider helping them make an alphabet book with a couple of letters per page, plus drawings of items whose names start with those letters. Once their masterpieces are ready, they can stand them up and put them on display!
Raising little readers and writers means providing plenty of reading and writing material, which in turn can mean a whole lot of pencils and pens trailing around your home. But never fear! With just a little glam, you can upcycle a plastic container into the perfect storage container for pencils, markers, and even crayons! There are so many different plastic containers for food that are the perfect size to repurpose into a pencil holder. This is a fun, easy, and environmentally responsible project with just a few simple steps!
These might be my new favorite DIY craft bookmarks! The chunky tassels are so fun and make it super easy to find your spot in a book, even for little hands. They’re also eye-catching and hard to misplace … hopefully encouraging young readers to use them instead of folding down the page corner! (We can always dream.)
There’s nothing quite like a new notebook for inviting possibility, its crisp pages tantalizing us with speculation about what’s to come. And personalizing a notebook is the perfect way to channel that sense of possibility and really make it our own. So why not kick off a new year, a new project, or a new diary with this DIY book-page decoupage notebook? (Hint: It also works to give old notebooks new life! Younger siblings will never know the difference, but the planet will thank you.)
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Book enthusiasts have long credited family reading with healing and restorative properties, calling it a “magical elixir” or a “super multivitamin” for a range of personal and social issues. As the world-upending first year of COVID, 2020, yawned to an end, one mom even declared that families reading aloud just might be “the panacea the world is looking for right now.” In her estimation, reading with kids just a few minutes a day could combat feelings of defeat and allow parents to claim a much-needed victory.
While extolling the virtues of reading together for bolstering character and resilience, plus remedying the ills of digital distraction and social fragmentation, it’s easy to skip right over its greatest power—seeding early literacy.
Read on for a few science-backed insights into how sharing reading from day one boosts brain capacity, stimulates language development, and spurs vocabulary growth.
Build Brain Networks
For a clear illustration of how brain architecture emerges—and how it lays the foundation for all future learning—check out this video from the Harvard Center for the Developing Child. It shows how brains are built from the bottom up, as millions of new neural connections form in the first few years of life.
Genes affect brain development, but experiences like back-and-forth conversations and interactions between children and caregivers play a powerful role as well. Parents’ exchanges with children, and responsiveness to them, bolster certain brain connections through repeated use, while allowing others to wither from neglect. This ongoing process of brain-circuit reinforcement and pruning continues throughout life, but experts agree that the earliest years have outsized influence.
Humans are not hardwired to read, so in order to gain literacy each brain has to recruit and redirect circuits and networks built for other purposes. For example, the reading brain may co-opt systems originally evolved for vision, oral language, and working memory. This dynamic process requires years of gradual capacity-building through activities that stimulate a child’s brain—including parent-child talking, singing, and reading—starting in infancy.
Reading aloud, in particular, is widely considered to be the difference-maker for early literacy development. The American Academy of Pediatrics urges doctors to promote family reading as a central part of their primary care, from babyhood through at least kindergarten. Reading regularly with kids isn’t just good for young children, the academy’s report notes, it “stimulates optimal patterns of brain development.” That’s high praise.
The time of greatest potential to wire the brain for reading occurs in the first five years of a child’s life, when the brain is most flexible, experts say. Scientists have been increasingly studying the brain activity of young children, thanks to new technology and research methods. And their brain activation research has found encouraging signs that frequent reading aloud to little ones can positively impact the brain function necessary to support reading. In more technical terms, they found preliminary positive associations with brain function relating to visual imagery, expressive language, narrative comprehension, and word understanding.
Boost Language Skills
While an infant won’t be able to point to print or murmur words at first, rest assured that reading aloud still benefits them. Researchers say eye contact, cooing, snuggling into the parent, and reaching for books are telltale signs your baby is engaged in the experience.
As a parent, you be the judge. Tune into your baby while reading. Does she gaze at you while you read? Or grab for the book or your hand as you turn a page? Does he babble more during readings of familiar stories?
One study found that read-alouds with babies as young as eight months old have a direct impact on kids’ ability to express themselves at 12 or 16 months. The one-year-olds and 16-month-olds who’d been read to as younger babies were better able to imitate words, speak words, name objects, and use gestures and words to make requests.
They were also more likely to imitate parents’ patterns of intonation, use consistent sound combinations for people or objects, and make good use of the word “no.” (A key, if somewhat dreaded, linguistic step for toddlers.)
Another study found a difference when moms (sorry, no dads were included in this research) directed more questions to their 10-month-olds while reading stories. These moms had children with better language skills at 18 months old than mothers who hadn’t engaged with shared books in this way.
The toddlers who had been peppered with questions like What’s that? Where’s the doggy? Do you wanna turn the pages? Ready? during storytime as babies showed greater ability to understand what others said to them when they were a year and a half. They also showed a higher capacity to communicate their needs, thoughts, and ideas using words, phrases, and gestures.
So, there’s great value in reading books and asking related questions, even before kids start talking and can provide full-fledged answers themselves. How does that sound? (Read 7 Guaranteed Ways to Engage Kids with Family Read-Alouds for tips on doing this kind of enriched reading aloud to your little one.)
Accelerate Vocabulary Growth
In the course of a day with babies, parents typically spend time preparing and serving meals, giving baths, playing with toys, singing and rhyming, and reading stories.
But of all the activities shared, reading has the distinction of being simultaneously the most valuable for vocabulary enrichment and the least-commonly performed activity, experts say. Read-alouds, on average, account for just 1-2 percent of everyday baby life.
Read-alouds prompt significantly more parent-child language and engagement than other household activities. The language structure and vocabulary in books is often more sophisticated than the everyday language parents use with infants and small kids.
Additionally, the language used around the book—in discussing illustrations, relating stories to the child’s experience, or asking questions—is also more advanced. All of this stretches your baby’s vocabulary exposure in incredibly valuable ways.
And, amazingly, reading done with babies seems to continue to fuel their vocabulary growth long afterward. Researchers found that infants’ levels of attention during book-reading correlated with their vocabulary knowledge at school entry years later.
Another study reports that parent-toddler book reading positively links with the range of words that a child can understand and respond to in the fourth grade. Wow.
An element of direct teaching is in play here. Parents sometimes call attention to a particular word by pointing to it, provide word definitions on the fly while reading, or repeat less-familiar words for emphasis. In a meta-analysis of word learning through read-alouds, more interactive reading styles were shown to boost vocabulary growth.
In short, read early, often, and engagingly to get your baby off to a smart start.
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Matching letters to sounds is a crucial step on the road to reading. It’s a seemingly simple skill that actually requires a whole lot of practice to master. Every app and workbook alike asks kids to draw a line from a picture to the letter it begins with. This literacy activity is everywhere for a reason—it works. But I think we can upgrade this classic to make it much more fun and interactive.
Given how much repetition kids need to commit the sounds of all 26 letters of the alphabet to memory, changing things up is key. Maybe you could use an educational activity to do while you and your child wait for their big sister’s karate lessons to finish. Maybe you’d like a new game that your learners can do together or independently. Or maybe you simply want to mix up your everyday routine for teaching reading skills to your little ones. If any of these is you, step on down and make a Wheel-of-Phonics!
Not feeling crafty? Get the free downloadable Wheel-of-Phonics all ready to print.
Materials
- Paper plate
- Markers
- Ruler
- Clothespins
- Glue or tape
- Scissors
- Paper
- Printer (optional)
Cost: $2-8 for clothespins. The materials for this activity can all be picked up at the grocery store. A one-stop shop is always such a relief. You could also go to a craft store for the clothespins, but they tend to cost way more and you get way less. Just saunter on over to the laundry aisle and grab a pack there.
Step 1: Using the ruler as a guide, draw three lines across the paper plate, dividing it into six triangles, like a pie.
Step 2: Write a different letter in each section. Optional: I like to color the triangles too, as I think it makes the wheel more fun and eye-catching, but that’s entirely up to you.
Step 3: On a piece of paper, draw two or three items that begin with each letter. They should be small, as they need to fit on the clothes pin—no bigger than the size of a quarter. If drawing is not your strong suit (it is definitely not mine), you can always just print some clipart instead! Or send some little helpers on a treasure hunt for appropriate pictures to cut out from a catalog or magazine.
Tip: When choosing images, I like to include pictures a child will easily recognize. This can vary greatly based on cultural experiences. For example, my students in Brooklyn would match pictures of a yellow taxicab to the letter C, for cab. But my Austin students matched it to T, for taxi.
Step 4: Cut out the pictures and glue or tape them to the handles of the clothespins. Depending on how comfortable your little one is with scissors, they can help you cut out the pictures.
Step 5: Place all of the clothespins together and set to one side. With your child, review the names and sounds of each letter on your wheel.
Step 6: It’s clipping time! Have your child match the pictures on the clothespins to the correct letters. Fill the Wheel-of-Phonics!
I love an activity that evolves with a child, and Wheel-of-Phonics is one of those! I suggest starting with the beginning letters of each item in your pictures, but when your kiddo is ready, you can focus on middle or ending sounds. As they become a more fluent reader, you can use digraphs like CH or SH, or ending sounds such as ing and ang in place of letters.
You could even switch it up by placing a single image on the center of the wheel and putting letters on the clothespins. Then let your child clip on the letters that correctly spell out the picture. This game has as many possibilities as you care to experiment with! Let us know what you try and how it works out.
Have fun helping your reader win with the Wheel-of-Phonics!
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The idea of reading to children daily is deeply entrenched in American culture, even if the practice hasn’t completely taken hold. Books advising parents on creating family reading routines, and recommending what to read to kids when, have flourished since the 1930s.
Raise-a-reader stories are standard features of parenting magazines and blogs. Schools, teachers, and community organizations all tout the benefits of reading to kids. My local grocery store chain even runs a book drive and encourages parents to pledge to read to their children several times a week.
But there’s much less discussion of what exactly to do during storytime—beyond turning the pages, reading with feeling, and keeping things fun. The link often remains unclear between the printed words on the page, a parent’s spoken recitation of them, and the child’s path to literacy.
In fact, experts say that, typically, parents focus on the story and illustrations when reading aloud to their children. That’s understandable! But what parents may not realize is that they’re missing a key teaching opportunity if they don’t also focus on the text itself. Otherwise, small children more often than not imagine that we’re deriving the story we’re reading aloud (down to its specific wording) from the engaging pictures—not those unfamiliar squiggles next to the pictures.
When reading to our kids, we tend to do little to raise their awareness of how books work, how print conveys meaning, and what letters and words really are. These are vital lessons, because before a child can read print, they must notice it.
Fortunately, it takes just a small course correction to maximize story time and help little ones bridge from listening into literacy. Parents or caregivers have thousands of opportunities to give mini-lessons on print concepts during storybook reading. It’s just a question of knowing what to point out to help forge a conscious connection between what they’re hearing and what you’re reading.
Note the emphasis here is on “mini.” Just sprinkle in a few comments (max), before or during reading, to direct your little one’s attention to how books are organized and how print mirrors spoken language. And be sure to use your finger to point to letters and words, which helps kids connect print and speech.
Here are five things to call attention to when reading with your child, along with proven talking points, derived from research into how to boost young kids’ literacy skills.
Book Cover Elements
Before you dive into a book with your child, get in the habit of taking a few moments to consider the cover together. Draw their attention to the title and author or illustrator names. Just point to the appropriate cover elements while describing what the words say and how they relate to the book.
Sample Phrases:
- The person who wrote the book is called the author. These words are the author’s name. (Point to the author’s name.) It says Vashti Harrison.
- This is the name of the book. It says Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History. What is the name of the book?
- Look at the words here on the book’s cover.
Book Organization
It’s obvious to us as adults who are skilled readers, but the notion that books are read in a particular order, from front to back, is something that kids must learn. Similarly, they must come to understand that in English we read from the top of the page to the bottom and from left to right. Little ones may recognize these print features eventually without you directly mentioning them, but quickly pointing out page order, page organization, and print direction will get them there faster.
Sample Phrases:
- These are the words on the page. I need to read them this way. (Trace finger from left to right below the text.)
- Where should we start reading? Here? (Point to the first word on the page.) Or here? (Point to the last word on the page.)
- I know this is the top of the page. Show me where the bottom of the page is.
Print Meaning
Books are a handy tool for teaching an abstract concept—that the lines and curves kids see printed on paper, on products, and on signs actually mean something. Children don’t initially know that printed symbols (letters and words) represent spoken sounds and words, and that making sense of those symbols is what we call reading. Parents can use their words and finger pointing to help kids make the connection between written language and spoken language.
Sample Phrases:
- This is where the bunny is talking. The bunny’s words are inside this bubble. (Point to speech bubble.)
- Oh, my. Look at this word! This word is shouting. Look at the shapes of the letters. They are big and wide and red. They look like they are shouting, don’t they? This word looks like what it means, doesn’t it? It says shouting. What is this word?
- Show me where the bunny is talking.
Letters
Books typically feature uppercase and lowercase versions of letters, as well as different fonts. This provides opportunities to teach the names of a letter while pointing to diverse images of it, so that kids can begin to connect the letter name, shape, and sound as different representations of the same letter. And books also illustrate the point that letters make up words, helping kids bridge into reading.
Sample Phrases:
- This is an uppercase letter. Can you trace it with your finger?
- This is the letter B. (Point to the letter.) It makes the /b/ sound. We see this letter in lots of words. We see B in the word babysitter and in the word boy. Let’s point to all of the B’s on this page.
- The letters D,O, and G make up the word dog. (Point to each letter in turn.)
Words
Learning to recognize words in print is another skill that’s years in the making. Kids have to learn that letters are different from words (although some words have just one letter). They have to grasp that words have spaces between them in writing and that they carry meaning. And that’s just what it takes to become aware of words as a general concept or category of print. They still have to do the hard work of learning to recognize particular words (starting with their own name, high-frequency words, or high-utility words). Books give parents a convenient way to gently call attention to these concepts again and again.
Sample Phrases:
- This is the word Mommy right here. What is this word?
- Look at these two words. Which word do you think is a short word—this word? (Point to my.) Or this word? (Point to teacher).
- This page has four words on it, I will smile anyway! Let’s count the words while I point.
Remember, light and easy is the way to teach all these concepts. Keep the shared book reading experience fun by continuing to center the story and enjoy the illustrations. Reference print lightly but regularly, with just a few comments, questions, or directions in each book you share with your little one.
Resources for Parents
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