Doing activities with your children allows you to promote their reading and writing skills while having fun at the same time.
These activities for pre-readers, beginning readers, and older readers includes what you need and what to do for each one.
These activities have been developed by national reading experts for you to use with children, ages birth to Grade 6. The activities are meant to be used in addition to reading with children every day.
In using these activities, your main goal will be to develop great enthusiasm in the reader for reading and writing. You are the child’s cheerleader. It is less important for the reader to get every word exactly right. It is more important for the child to learn to love reading itself. If the reader finishes one book and asks for another, you know you are succeeding! If your reader writes even once a week and comes back for more, you know you have accomplished your beginning goals.
We wish you many wonderful hours of reading and writing with children!
Activities for birth to preschool: The early years
Activity 1: Books and babies
Babies love to listen to the human voice. What better way than through reading!
What you’ll need:
Some books written especially for babies (books made of cardboard or cloth with flaps to lift and holes to peek through).
What to do:
- Start out by singing lullabies and folk songs to your baby. When your baby is about six months old, choose books with brightly colored, simple pictures and lots of rhythm in the text. (Mother Goose rhymes are perfect.) Hold your baby in your lap so he/she can see the colorful pages of the book. Include books that show pictures and names of familiar objects.
- As you read with your baby, point out objects in the pictures and make sure your baby sees all the things that are fun to do with books. (Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt is a classic touch-and-feel book for babies.)
- Vary the tone of your voice with different characters in the stories, sing nursery rhymes, make funny faces, do whatever special effects you can to stimulate your baby’s interest.
- Allow your child to touch and hold cloth and sturdy cardboard books.
- When reading to a baby, keep the sessions brief but read daily and often.
As you read to your baby, your child is forming an association between books and what is most loved – your voice and closeness. Allowing babies to handle books deepens their attachment even more.
Activity 2: Tot talk
What’s “old hat” to you can be new and exciting to toddlers and preschoolers. When you talk about everyday experiences, you help children connect their world to language and enable them to go beyond that world to new ideas.
What you’ll need:
Yourself and your child
What to do:
- As you get dinner ready, talk to your child about things that are happening. When your 2- or 3-year-old “helps” by taking out all the pots and pans, talk about them. “Which one is the biggest?” “Can you find a lid for that one?” “What color is this one?”
- When walking down the street and your toddler or preschooler stops to collect leaves, stop and ask questions that require more than a “yes” or “no” answer. “Which leaves are the same?” “Which leaves are different?” “What else grows on trees?”
- Ask “what if” questions. “What would happen if we didn’t shovel the snow?” “What if that butterfly lands on your nose?”
- Answer your child’s endless “why” questions patiently. When you say, “I don’t know, let’s look it up,” you show how important books are as resources for answering questions.
- After your child tells you a story, ask questions so you can understand better. That way children learn how to tell complete stories and know you are interested in what they have to say.
- Expose your child to varied experiences – trips to the library, museum, or zoo; walks in the park; or visits with friends and relatives. Surround these events with lots of comments, questions, and answers.
Talking enables children to expand their vocabulary and understanding of the world. The ability to carry on a conversation is important for reading development. Remember, it is better to talk too much rather than too little with a small child.
Continue reading the activity list for your child (of any age) at www.readingrockets.org.
(Kameenui, E. J., & Simmons, D. C. (May, 1997). Read*Write*Now! Activities for Reading and Writing Fun. A Joint Project of the U.S. Department of Education, the American Library Association, Pizza Hut, Inc., Scholastic, Inc., Reading Is Fundamental, Inc.)