Ten Ways to Make Reading Part of Every Day

1. Keep Books in Reach
Make sure there are plenty of books where your child can easily see and reach them so he can pick one up whenever he wants. Include catalogs and magazines too!

2. Drawing Time
Build up your child's ability to hold writing implements and control her use of line just by letting her draw and color.

3. Write a Story Together
Have your child draw a picture and ask her what's happening within it or what she would title her drawing. Write down the story or title at the bottom. Encourage her to draw a series of pictures and develop her sense of story. You'll also empower her with the idea she can create stories herself.

4. Meet and Greet the Library
Bring your child along on trips to the library. Make it a familiar and friendly experience and show him that there is a place where he can freely access tons of books.

5. Stop, Look, and Ask While Your Child Listens
Make sure to pause and point things out to your child while you're reading. Ask questions about stories as you read them and discuss plots and characters after you're done to develop reading comprehension skills.

6. Make Your Own Books on Tape
Tired of reading the same books again and again? Record you or your child reading those books so she can listen to them whenever she wants -- at bedtime, while playing, or in the car.

7. Label Everything
Putting signs or stickers on things around the house is a great way to connect language with concrete objects. It lets your child know that everything has a name and a word attached to it.

8. How Was Your Day?
Expand your child's sense of narrative by giving simple explanations of what happened to you during an ordinary day. Tell him of happenings and how they affected later events. Ask him to tell you about his day, too.

9. Create an Alphabet Book
Take 26 pieces of heavy paper and write one letter from the alphabet on each. Challenge your child to draw pictures of things beginning with each letter. When she's finished at least one drawing per letter, bind it together, and present her with her novel work.

10. Rhyme Time
Challenge your child to come up with simple rhymes for words like "cat" and "ball." It's a fun game you can play anywhere and builds phonemic awareness.

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Growing Up To Read

Article taken from "Starting Out Right"
http://bob.nap.edu/readingroom/books/sor/sor-2.htm
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Children begin to develop their language skills in infancy. Even their babbles and coos and the ways their families speak to them before they really understand can help them to become speakers of their native tongue. When an infant shows excitement over pictures in a storybook, when a two-year-old scribbles with a crayon, when a four-year-old points out letters in a street sign--all of these actions signal a child's growing literacy development.

The more children already know about the nature and purposes of reading before kindergarten, the more teachers have to build on in their reading instruction. Research reveals that the children most at risk for reading difficulties in the primary grades are those who began school with less verbal skill, less phonological awareness, less letter knowledge, and less familiarity with the basic purposes and mechanisms of reading.

To prepare children for reading instruction in the early grades, it is best that they be exposed to high-quality language and literacy environments--in their homes, day care centers, and preschools. The best time to start sharing books with children is during babyhood, even when they are as young as six weeks. Families, early childhood educators, health care professionals, and communities can bring literacy into the lives of young children.

Early research dating back to the 1930s suggested that there was little use in teaching children how to read until they had already conquered specific readiness skills, such as certain fine motor skills and the ability to tell right from left.

Today, researchers know more. They know that growing up to be a reader depends mostly on the child's knowledge about language and print. A wide range of experiences with printed and spoken language, from infancy through early childhood, strongly influences a child's future success in reading. What is good for a six-year-old, however, is not necessarily good for a three-year-old. Children need activities they will enjoy and can succeed at, without being pushed uncomfortably beyond their current developmental stage.

-- Even when children cannot yet spell,
they learn from trying to write.
-- Even when children cannot yet read,
they learn from being read to.

Article taken from "Starting Out Right"
http://bob.nap.edu/readingroom/books/sor/sor-2.htm