Do You Have a Literacy Plan for Your Child?
Q: Where does your child’s reading success begin?
A: at birth
Q: should it be a two, five, or ten-year plan?
A: Reading Lasts for a Lifetime
Q: How much is this plan going to cost?
A: It is priceless!
Did your parents have a literacy plan for you and your siblings?
Parents are constantly asked to ‘plan’ for things in their lives and the lives of their children. There are plans for education, career, emergencies, housing, health, vacation, finance, and retirement . . . but what about Literacy?
At this point you are probably shaking your head, rolling your eyes, and saying, “you’ve got to be kidding!” No, I do not!
One of the most important tools to build the path of our life journey of self-discovery is literacy: mastery in reading and writing. Reading success is the foundation to our life successes. Am I saying you cannot have success without reading success? No, but to have sustained growth you need strong literacy skills. Reading lasts for a lifetime!
Like any contract or ‘plan’, there are ‘terms of the agreement.’ Your child’s literacy plan should be no different. Rules and regulations should be clear to all parties. These terms of agreement in your child’s literacy plan may not be legally binding but should outline clearly what can be reasonably expected.
Start with the Beginning Foundations for Reading: My Child’s Literacy Plan: Birth to 3 Years
- Read, Observe, and Plan. Parents have to recognize the positive traits in their child, what they like and do not like, can they focus in order to learn?
- Are they developmentally ready to learn the skills presented?
- Am I committed to time, consistency, and patience?
Terms:
- It is the responsibility of parents to begin their child’s literacy plan upon their birth.
- Talk to your baby to develop speech, give your child physical activity every day, play music and sing to develop listening skills, put up mobile is that excite and engage your baby visually.
- You and other family members should introduce books by reading stories to your child.
- Create experiences that excite and engage your child’s senses of hearing, seeing, touching, smelling, tasting.
- Develop a sense of accomplishment for a pathway to self-esteem.
- Motivate your baby and toddler with words of encouragement and acknowledgement using a happy voice tone. Body language to a child is important.
- As development allows play games: peekaboo, clap your hands, toss a bean bag, counting… crawl, run, skip, hop, jump, rock and roll. This increases your child’s hand-eye coordination and eye tracking and sense of balance.
- Clear out a kitchen cabinet and put items in there they can reach and play with.
- Color and scribble.
- Build creativity with puppets.
- Toddlers love puzzles and busy boxes that give them textures to touch and create with.
- Introduce science and math into their daily activities and while you are teaching them about rain by watching a rainstorm, do not forget to go to your local library and get books on the subject.
- When you introduce nature with a nature walk, do not forget to read books about nature and animals in nature.
- Most importantly, give them your time…and take your time.
Literacy success with reading and writing is more than just words in a book!
Age 3-6: Parents need to review and revise their child’s plan. Parents need to help them find their literacy footing with play. Exploring is their world. So much more to see, hear, touch, smell, and taste. This all comes with vocabulary, letters of the alphabet, and structure of our language. Bring in more engaging games
Age 6-9: Time to learn using formal instruction
Age 9-12: Oh no, the pre-teen years!
Age 12-18: Will they be prepared for higher education?
Age 18-adult: What excites them?
Additional Resources:
http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Fundamentals-0-3-Early-Years/dp/0806975210
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/literacy-milestones-birth-age-3
Do You Have a Literacy Plan for Your Child? Was first published on NutsAboutReading.com
KLAC ENTERPRISES, LLC/Buckaroo Buckeye™/Nuts About Reading™
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