Good Parents Canada

Several tips to help parents of young children promote literacy at home.

• Choose a quiet time for reading to your child, as in before a nap, bedtime, or after dinner.
• Choose a special place for family reading, like a comfortable chair or pillows piled on the floor.
• Let your child select the book for you to read aloud.
• Hold the book so that she or he can see the pictures. If possible, also let her or him turn the pages.
• Take time to look at and talk about the pictures. Don’t just read the story: talk about it. Let your child point out letters, shapes, colors, and animals.
• Understand that reading begins at home. Children read their environments, so make your home a print rich environment.
• Read! Don’t expect reading to be important to your children if they see that it’s not important to you.
• Invite your child to read to you. If he or she is a pre reader, he’ll often interpret his own story using illustrations and his imagination.
• Make lists, lots of them. Make them for grocery shopping, books to buy and things to take on trips.
• Read aloud to your child every day.

*adapted from My First Week of School by Derrick Gantt.