A Daily Committment

 

Nurturing literacy in the early years benefits our children for life. By using the routines of a young child’s everyday life at home, we can provide rich moments for our children and ourselves, moments in which we can contribute enormously to helping our children develop their language skills.

Experts say the top three things parents can do to nurture early literacy are to spend time with their children, talk and listen to the child, and have fun with books. The following suggestions are just a few ways in which you can nurture literacy:

  1. Use the child’s environment to teach language—like naming the colours on products in a store or reading a Stop sign in the street;
  2. Take cues from your child; encourage your children when they show an interest and readiness for an activity;
  3. Play word games—expose your child to sounds, words and the cadence of words as a good beginning to early literacy;
  4. When your baby smiles, smile back;
  5. Remember, babies recognize voices and emotions; for example, if you smile at the sound of music, chances are your child will smile as well;
  6. Hide new books; children like hunting for treasure so they’ll think the new book is a treasure;
  7. If buying new books is beyond your budget, get them from the library or use advertising supplements in the newspaper.