Importance of Promoting Literacy in the Home

Promoting Literacy in the Home

Reciting nursery rhymes, reading fairy tales, and playing I Spy are all common activities families do with their young children. Besides being fun ways for families to spend time together, what else do these things have in common?

These activities are just some of the many ways families can promote literacy in the home starting at a young age.

In this video, we’ll describe reading, writing, listening, and speaking activities families can do to promote literacy at home for children of various ages.

Word Play

Word play is one way to build young children’s literacy skills through listening and speaking activities.

Nursery rhymes help young children develop phonological awareness, or the ability to identify and manipulate sounds in spoken language. This is important for later reading development. Phonological awareness includes rhyming, which is prevalent in nursery rhymes like Jack and Jill and Humpty Dumpty, and alliteration, as in the nursery rhyme Sing a Song of Sixpence.

Tongue twisters are another fun way to help young children develop phonological awareness through alliteration. Caregivers can draw attention to the repeated beginning sounds in the words, as in the /p/ sound heard in Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. After reciting tongue twisters together, children can be encouraged to create their own.

Word Games

There are many word games that also assist children with developing literacy skills.

Playing I Spy helps children build vocabulary and use descriptive language to describe objects.

The game 20 Questions also helps children build vocabulary and sort words into categories. In this game, one player thinks of a mystery person or thing, and the other player can ask up to 20 yes or no questions to narrow down the possible answers and guess the word correctly. When trying to guess the mystery word, a player may ask questions like:

• Is it a living thing?
• Is it an animal?
• Is it something you can eat?

Each time a yes or no answer is received, the child will include or exclude possible guesses based on whether or not they fit in the resulting categories.

Parents can also give children sets of three words, where two of the words have something in common, and ask which word doesn’t belong. Additionally, parents can give children lists of words and ask them to sort the words into categories. For example, they can provide a list of three foods and three clothing items mixed together for the child to sort.

These games help children develop semantic skills, or the ability to understand the meanings of words, phrases, and sentences and use word meanings correctly. These semantic skills will assist with reading comprehension.

Reading Books

Another way that families can promote literacy development at home is to read a variety of text types together.

Reading can become part of the daily routine, incorporated into bedtime and other predictable periods throughout the day. Before children can read independently, parents or other family members can read aloud. They can model concepts of print, such as how to hold a book correctly, how to turn the pages from front to back, and how to track the print with their fingers as they read. They can ask questions before reading, such as:

• What do you think the book will be about? Why?
• What do you already know about this topic?

They can also ask questions during reading, such as:

• What do you think will happen next? Why?
• Does this story remind you of any other stories we have read?
• Does this story remind you of anything that has happened to you?

They can also ask questions after reading, such as:

• What was your favorite part? Why?
• Who were the characters in the story?
• What happened in the story?

Older readers can still enjoy listening to family members reading aloud, but they can also read aloud to their family members or take turns reading together. Older readers can be asked to compare and contrast viewpoints, evaluate the author’s claims, and answer other higher-level thinking questions.

Families can also take frequent trips to the library to select new books and listen to audiobooks or podcasts together. Parents can model how to select from a variety of texts to match the purpose for reading. For example, if a child is interested in learning more about sharks, his parents may assist him with listing questions he would like to answer before directing him to the nonfiction section of the library to select books that will provide the needed information.

Reading together as a family has numerous benefits for literacy development. First, it helps children see reading as a positive experience and a way to have fun and learn new information.

Additionally, asking a variety of questions before, during, and after reading assists children with comprehension. Modeling these questioning strategies from a young age helps them become a routine part of reading which can be incorporated into future independent reading experiences.

Young readers can also increase their own reading fluency by listening to the fluent reading of older family members and modeling their own reading after it.

Reading and Writing for Real-World Purposes

It’s also important for children to engage in frequent reading and writing for real-world purposes. These activities can be built into families’ daily routines.

Families can involve children in the process of browsing through cookbooks and grocery ads to plan meals. They can then assist with writing grocery lists. At the store, children can locate needed items by reading signs and compare products by reading food labels. While cooking, children can assist with reading recipes.

Before purchasing items online, children can assist with reading product descriptions and reviews. After purchasing, they can assist family members with writing their own reviews. Children can also assist with reading directions when assembling toys, furniture, and other items.

In restaurants, children can read the menu to select their own meals.

They can get the mail each day and sort it by recipient, and assist parents with filling out permission slips and other school forms.

Older children can also be encouraged to write letters or emails to family members and friends and contact elected officials to voice concerns about their communities.

Review

Let’s review what we learned in this video.

• There are many activities families can do at home to promote literacy development.
• Word play and word games help children develop phonological awareness skills, vocabulary knowledge, and semantics skills. Sample activities include reciting nursery rhymes, saying tongue twisters, and playing games like I Spy or 20 Questions.
• Family members can also read together frequently for a variety of purposes. Asking questions before, during, and after reading assists with comprehension.
• Reading and writing for real-world purposes also promotes literacy development.

Before we go, let’s go over two review questions:

Questions

1. What are some ways that parents can help their preschool children develop phonological awareness?

2. Reading and writing are related processes and both are part of literacy development. How can families incorporate writing into their daily and weekly routines?

That’s all for this review! Thanks for watching, and happy studying.