Four Ideas for Engaging Beginning Readers
Help Children Notice Print Rich Environments all Around Them
Oct 28, 2009
Whether parents home school their children or choose to send them to a traditional brick and mortar school, there are tons of creative ways to offer children support outside of the classroom. Just about every moment spent with a child can be turned into a teachable moment. When adults stop for a minute to take a fresh look at the world through the eyes of a small child they begin to realize that everything can be new and exciting if presented the right way.
Teaching children the alphabet and how to sound out words in books and on paper is an important component of literacy instruction. Visits to libraries, bedtime stories, and helping with homework are all important. However, parents can also help to excite children about reading and writing by pointing out print everywhere they go.
Car Rides Become Literacy Adventures
Parents can point out highway exit signs, billboards, store signs, and even license plates and ask children to identify familiar letters, words, and phrases. Challenging children to read simple street and traffic signs such as stop signs, speed limit signs, and names of streets can be loads of fun for them. Their confidence will blossom as they find success with these types of games.
Grocery Shopping Becomes a World of Words
Trips to the grocery store are perfect opportunities to get children to take note of the print rich environments that exist in everyday life. Parents can have children help to write the grocery list and then carry it while shopping so that they can cross out items. This is a big hit with most children as they notice words on store products such as cereal boxes, labels on shelves, and signs over the aisles such as "pasta, rice, and spaghetti sauce aisle".
Dining Out Becomes a Practice of Literacy Skills
Children usually love to eat off foods ordered from the kiddie menus that exist in many restaurants. A trip to a restaurant with a child becomes a perfect opportunity for them to try out their newly acquired decoding skills. Parents can encourage children to scan the menu, pointing out familiar words, and then allow them to order their own meals. This is quite a boost for most children.
Children's Bedrooms Become Print Rich Environments
A great way to incorporate literacy into a child's daily experience outside of the classroom is to invite them to help label furniture and other items in their bedroom. Children usually love to help with this activity and then have a blast later on when they get to read the labels. Beds, drawers, closets, bookshelves, toy boxes, and windows are all good items to label. Parents may even choose to label something like a door with a simple sentence such as, "The door is brown." or "This door is open."
It is not difficult to help a child discover the vast world of words that exist just about everywhere they can possibly turn their little heads. Print rich environments can be discovered all around. When parents show enthusiasm about literacy, offer specific praise, and are willing to be creative, children are more apt to develop a positive attitude about reading and writing.
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