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What the Science Tells Us

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For most children, learning to read requires explicit teaching that helps them learn how to turn the squiggles on a page into words and sentences they understand, making it quite different from learning to speak or sign.

Research shows that there is no advantage in trying to teach our child about letters or learning to read when they are infants. However, there are things we can do that make our child’s journey into literacy easier, even at a very young age.

Children who are regularly exposed to hearing stories and having books read to them from early in life tend to develop better literacy skills. This is especially true when we encourage our child to participate in back-andforth conversations during story time. A recent study shows that we prepare our child for future reading comprehension when we give them many opportunities each day to engage in turn-taking conversations (see Books).

We want our child to have positive experiences with books, right from the start of life because we know that there is a link between a love of books acquired early in life and later literacy. Children who are familiar with books, what they do and how we use them are already on the road to literacy.

Once they are old enough to be aware of books our child can be introduced to how writing works in our language. In English, for instance, we write

from left to right, and go from the top to the bottom of the page. If we trace our finger under text as we read to our child, they are learning this important aspect of literacy.

Future literacy is also supported when we point to individual letters and words, and even the spaces between words as we read with our child. It can be difficult for them to understand what a written word is and that spaces symbolise word breaks.

Playing around with rhyming words is common in many cultures and is part of pre-literacy for our child. It helps them learn that words contain distinct sounds. Encouraging our child to use words they know, and to say new “silly words” that don’t exist is valuable for language development. It demonstrates how one sound can be changed for another, and how this changes the meaning of a word.

As we expose our child to stories and books we are naturally preparing them for literacy. We are doing this when we play with language and invent sound games, such as asking our child to think of words that start or end with the same letter. This gives our child an opportunity to learn that letters and combinations of letters are associated with sounds. All of these things set a good foundation for learning to read.

What You Can Do

Everything that contributes to strong brain development is helpful for your child’s language development and future literacy. Give your child opportunities to:

“Stories prepare children for literacy.

# Problem solve, outdoors or indoors  # Play in a variety of ways and situations, with you or on their own  # Get enough sleep, exercise and healthy food  Starting early in life you can create a warm and loving association with written material. Librarians can advise about books and other resources that show how to do this.

You can:

# Read to your child regularly, beginning as early as birth and even before • Read almost anything with a soothing voice and your child will enjoy listening  • Keep books easily available, and make reading together a fun part of your regular routine  • Give your child books to look at.  Learning that a book has a front cover and a back cover and that you turn pages to “read” prepares your child for future literacy  # Move your finger along as you read to show your child how reading works  # Search out a word that appears frequently in a book • Look for letters your child knows on street signs, in stores or on billboards  # Show your child how you print letters and talk about their shapes  • Show them how their name is spelled and when they want to copy you, help them learn to print it and other names like “mama” and “dada”  # Draw letters in the sand, make letters out of rocks or play dough.  Have fun thinking up other ways to make letters 

# Play “sound” games and find words that begin or end with the same sound  • Play “Letter and Sound Treasure Hunt.” Put your child’s plastic, wood or handwritten and cut-out letters in a bag.  Your child pulls out three letters.  Talk about the sounds these letters make at the beginning of a word and go on your treasure hunt inside or outside to find things that start with that sound # Cuddle up close with your child so that story time is a special time for the two of you, where it is safe for your child to say anything.  You can ask: • What they think will happen next in a story and then say, “let’s see” and continue reading  • If anything happened in the story that they didn’t expect  • If they sometimes have feelings like a character in the story  • What they do when they read on their own (if they are readers) and come across a word they don’t know

This is a wonderful habit to get into with your child. It creates a warm and safe zone for them to share any concerns with you. If your child gets into the habit of sharing concerns with you at an early stage, this increases the likelihood they will continue to do so.

Many parents focus on teaching their children the alphabet before Kindergarten as a way to try and help them to become good readers. But there is more to literacy than the letters of the alphabet. Children who know the alphabet early may be good readers later on, but not necessarily!

That being said, teaching your child the alphabet can be fun, and

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singing the alphabet song together is a delightful way for your child to easily learn letters. Some parents do this every evening when brushing their child’s teeth. Additional advantages to this are:

# It builds the bond between you and your child # It creates a predictable routine

Predictability helps your child feel safe as they know what to expect. When children feel safe they are open to learning.

These are some tried and true tips for discovering language with your child that also prepare them to learn to read:

# Have fun with language • Use rhymes in poems, nursery rhymes and songs.  This helps your child understand that words contain different sounds and these can be moved around  • Encourage your child to create their own rhymes, even with made-up words  • You may say, for example, “The mouse ran into the house.” All that has changed is the “m” and the “h” sounds.  But the whole meaning of the words has been changed • You may then want to give them another example and see what they come up with.  If you say, “The cat is wearing a ____________?” and your child says, “hat” or “bat” or “mat” or even “fat” or “dat” they are showing you that they have learned some important things about language sounds

• Play action games that include fingers and toes and other parts of the body  • Have fun with tongue twisters  • Show your child the letters needed to write their name and put them together so they form their name.  You can move the letters around and read them the new “word”  Short serve and return interactions can take place at anytime and anywhere. Children enjoy sound play which is why they often start it. So follow their lead. Sound play is another way to build the all-important relationship with you and it prepares your child for learning to read

• When folding laundry, you can make a game of matching up socks.  When your child learns to observe and recognize what is similar they are gaining a skill that will be useful when learning to read  • Encourage your child to play “spot the difference” where they need to find a set number of differences between two images that are otherwise the same  • In a grocery store you can create a game where your child finds fruits or vegetables that begin or end with the same sound.  Your child is learning about “rules” and how to pay attention to sounds  • On a road trip or when walking with your child you can play games that support their future literacy, such as  • I’m going on a trip and I’m bringing my, [pick words that begin with the same letter or sound]

As your child develops you can create more challenging games. A broad range of skills helps children become good readers.