Building Early Literacy In Everyday Moments
Teach, Read, Succeed: Ask the Expert
There are many ways that we can incorporate building early literacy skills into our every day routines. Literacy isn’t just about books, it’s also how we interact with language all day long.
Key Literacy Skills
Throughout your day, there are opportunities to build literacy skills into the routines that you already have, without props or much preparation. Early literacy skills are essential to later reading success, and helping your child to build these skills will help them as they become proficient readers in the future. When we are working on building literacy skills, there are a few specific skills that we are going to focus on.
These skills are:
Vocabulary - building vocabulary helps to build understanding of language. This can look like using directional words (forward, backward, on top of, below, right, left), and using words that mean the same thing. For example, if your child is building a big block tower, using a word like gigantic helps them to have a concrete idea of what gigantic means.
Sound recognition - building your child’s ability to recognize the sounds in speech or spoken language, will help them to later apply these sounds to reading and writing. There are ways to help your child learn to recognize sounds both in speech and in print, I’ll share more below!
Understanding how words work - it’s never too early for children to be exposed to language, babies hear our speech from before they are even born, and continual exposure to words helps children to understand not just how the words work, but also how they are used in language. Having stories read to them, listening to songs, and being exposed to, or part of, conversations all help the youngest children to begin understanding language.
Confidence in communication - As children begin to speak, and to communicate, they are building their confidence in using language to get what they need and want, and being able to clearly communicate with the people around them.
Building these early literacy skills will help your child to prepare for their future as a reader and writer, even if it seems like they are years away from reading or writing independently.
5 Simple Times to Build Literacy
At the grocery store
At the grocery store, there are so many signs, with labels, prices, and foods. Reading these signs with your child will show them that there is print in their daily lives, and that those words have meanings.
If your child is too young to read the signs with you, it’s great to read the signs to them.
Having conversations about your purchases and the food items that you see, are also helpful for building literacy skills, including vocabulary, and knowledge about food choices.
Mealtime
During meals, or when cooking, talking about the texture of foods (bumpy, smooth, soft, etc.) and the colors and shapes of food give your child an opportunity to practice hearing and using adjectives (describing words) and to attach those words to their meanings.
Read Recipes - reading the ingredients and the step by step directions for cooking or baking is a great opportunity to help your child hear words, see you reading for a purpose (in this case to cook!). If your child is big enough to be included in the process, this takes the literacy skill building a step further and gives them a chance to practice following those directions.
Math bonus: reading a recipe and measuring ingredients helps to build math skills too! Think of fractions!
Bath time and Getting Dressed
This is a great time to sing rhyming songs! If you don’t know any off the top of your head, you can search for “children’s rhyming songs” on youtube. Once you listen to them, you may even remember some of the songs or rhymes from your childhood!
Name clothing items - as your child is picking out their clothes, talking about different clothing items, and the weather and how we dress to be prepared for the weather is a great way to have an easy conversation with your child, and gives them an opportunity to observe the world around them.
Practice letter sounds - adding letters (waterproof ones!) to your child’s bath toys can be a good opportunity to practice identifying the letter sounds while playing.
Playtime
Narrate what your child is doing - whether they are building a block tower, throwing a ball, or going down the slide, narrating their actions will give your child an opportunity to hear language and attach it to their actions, which is so powerful.
Ask open-ended questions - questions that cannot be answered with a “yes” or “no” or another short simple response, are open ended questions. These questions help your child to use their words and ability to express themselves, which not only builds their language from hearing speech, but also requires them to go further and apply their skills.
Create silly stories together - have some fun! Coming up with silly stories can be an easy way to use language and apply the parts of a story, beginning, middle, and end.
Bedtime
If you’re reading a bedtime story (or several), you’re helping your child’s language and literacy skills
Ask your child questions about the story such as “what do you think will happen next?” - this helps your child to think about the story, make predictions, and use what has already been read to think about possibilities for what could happen
Talk about the characters in the story - this is a great opportunity to talk about adjectives, actions, and the events that take place in the story
Challenges
If you have concerns about building your child’s early literacy skills, you’re not alone. Many parents feel that they don’t have time to do these tasks, or that certain activities may take longer if they are building their child’s literacy skills while doing them. At first, it may take longer, and it might take some extra time to think about the conversations you want to have with your child that will build these skills. But, over time, if you continue to use these strategies, you will become more comfortable building literacy skills without thinking about it, and your child will amaze you with how much they learn and grow.
If you’re worried about your child not being interested, that’s common too. Often, when we are interested in or excited about something, that is a great way to encourage our children to be interested too. If they’re still not interested, continuing to provide opportunities to engage with you like this is another great way to build up their eventual interest.
Are you uncertain of what to do? You’re probably already doing an incredible job, and doing more to help your child with their future reading than you realize. Try choosing one of these times of day and activities to intentionally work on building your child’s early literacy skills. Choose something that feels like it would fit easily into your routine. You’ve got this!
Remember, learning happens everywhere.
Your child is learning all the time from the environment around them. If you want to intentionally work on early literacy, start with something small that feels attainable and have fun with it. If you’re having fun, chances are your child will too. Every interaction counts, no matter how big or small. You’re doing great!
I’d love to hear from you. I have a facebook group community where parents like you can connect with each other, and with me, to talk about reading, share stories, and get advice from reading specialists and other parents. If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, we’d love to have you! You can join here.
Brittany is a teacher and reading specialist, fueled by her passions in teaching and supporting families. She supports families whether from birth through childhood.
Contact Courageous Moments to learn how she can help you and your child on your child’s reading journey.