Providing a Strong Foundation For Reading:
The best time for children to start learning to read is when they are very
young, usually at the preschool level. In the early years – whether at home,
in child care, in a preschool program or Kindergarten – children gain a
definite advantage when they are given opportunities to engage in purposeful
oral language and early print activities. These activities include:
-observing others reading
-enjoying and discussing a variety of books that are read aloud by others
-experiencing and pretending to read predictable and familiar books,
alphabet books, poems, rhymes, and more
-acting out stories, retelling familiar stories, and singing songs
-sharing experiences with adults and talking about those experiences
-observing print in the environment and connecting print with spoken words
and their meaning
-understanding book conventions and concepts about print (e.g., that a book
has a front and a back)
-recognizing that words are made up of sounds, and manipulating those sounds
through rhyming games, songs, or alliterations
-building new vocabulary through books, experiences, and interactions
Through these activities, children improve their oral language skills and
become involved in the joy of reading at a young age.
