Partners With Parents Day Care

5 Things You Can Do . . . To Help Your Child Learn To Read

1) Wherever you are make life a letter hunt. Be it the grocery store drug store the zoo or in the car pick a letter and find it in signage and brand names. See if you can get all 26 letters. Or choose a letter from the alphabet and search your home for words that start with that letter. Try labeling those objects using a labeler or post-it notes. (Please be forewarned! Pets exhibit a near-universal discomfort in being labeled.) After naming items individually try using a different colored labels to group them by type shape color or size. For example couch could also end up with the labels brown soft rectangle and furniture.

2) Read to your child every day. Demonstrate for your child how to read with expression. If a book has pictures relate the words to the pictures. Even if youre tired of a book Read it again! If you are repeating an old favorite change the words in silly ways and let your child catch you messing it up.

3) Give your child a newspaper clipping or magazine and have them find a letter with a crayon. CIRCLE ALL THE Ts. Give them paper and their favorite colored marker and let them experiment with writing or tracing the letters theyve found.

4) Spend time with letters of the alphabet that can be arranged and rearranged into different words. Make sure you have duplicates; we dont live in a world where one e suffices. If your child is past swallowing age a couple of sets of Scrabble letters should give more than enough variety for early readers. The large refrigerator magnets will do nicely as well.

5) Take your child to get his or her own library card and then visit the library regularly. Many libraries have programs for early readers like story time as well as afterschool programs for older children. Books on CD which most libraries carry provide a great opportunity for a child to read a book independently and to hear an expert readers modeling.

Child Ages:

2.5 years - 5 years

Licenses & Accreditations:

New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene

Preschool:

Yes