Although taking time out of your busy day to sit down and watch an episode of “Dora the Explorer” may not be high on your priority list, you can bet that watching a favorite television program is somewhere near the top of your child’s “Favorite Things to Do” list. You can take advantage of this passion by using it to help your child develop pre-reading skills.
After watching a favorite television show with your child, encourage him to retell the story by acting it out with you. If you need a few more characters, gather some stuffed animals and use them in the reenactment. Help your child create a few props to use during the storytelling.
Use different voices for different characters, and ask your child questions such as, “What happened first?”, “What happened next?”, “What was the problem?”, and “How did they solve the problem?”. All of these are story-mapping questions that help your child learn to better comprehend what they are reading or listening to.
Don’t be concerned if your child changes the story. Although being able to re-tell a story using the main events is certainly a skill you want your child to learn, it is just as beneficial for him to use his imagination to create a new ending to a story. Just go with the flow and have fun. And, oh yes, don’t forget your “Backpack, Backpack”!
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Written by Laura on September 16, 2011
As you sit down with your child to read her a story, there are several things you can do to help your child get the most out of her storytelling experience. Children at this young age are typically willing to sit and listen to a story from start to finish. However, you want to actively engage them in the story in order to get them thinking about what they are hearing. Here are some simple sugge
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Written by BRWI Staff on November 10, 2010
There are few different ways to introduce the concept of syllables to young children. On this site, we have previously discussed clapping your hands and using musical instruments, along with several other ideas. Once your child has a few methods in her repertoire, she will need practice using those techniques. Here is one way to do just that using zoo animals as the theme.
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Written by BRWI Staff on October 15, 2010
Echo reading is a strategy used in elementary classrooms that helps students develop fluency in their reading. In echo reading, students are paired together and then take turns reading the same passage, usually one or two sentences at a time. Although your preschooler probably is not able to actually read the words, this same strategy, with a bit of altering, can be utilized to teach the same fl
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Written by BRWI Staff on March 17, 2010
I once saw a link for an online video which supposedly showed an eighteen-month-old toddler reading books on camera. I didn’t watch the video because, honestly, my first thought was that it must a scam. When I thought about it a little bit more, my thoughts focused on the times when my own child was so proud of the fact that he could “read” his favorite Eric Carle story when h
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Written by Laura on March 8, 2010
By now, most people have heard at least one of the public service announcements describing how it is important to talk to your child in regular, complete sentences as opposed to the “baby talk” many people tend to begin using in the presence of a little one. Children learn by example, so when they hear adults talking with correct grammar and sentence structure, they begin to mimic the
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Written by BRWI Staff on February 1, 2010
As children get ready to read, it is an important skill to be able to listen to words carefully. Children who are able to hear and identify the different sounds in words are better able to decode words as they are reading them. Many children are able to simply hear a list of words and then extend the list according to the pattern. For example, if you were to say to the child, “fun”
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Written by BRWI Staff on January 25, 2010
