Raising a Reader; Encouraging Early Literacy

Reading is the foundation of all learning. Even though my education is in early childhood education, where we work hard to set up the stepping stones of literacy, reading has always been extremely important to me. So naturally, I am passing on the love to my son. If you have a young child, or even an older child, you may be wanting to get them interested in reading. Here are a few ways I incorporate reading in our home:

Read Daily

I’m not perfect, some days we don’t get a book in, but the effort is always there. A really easy way to fit a book into your day, is a simple bedtime story. When we first started reading nightly, Jude would squirm, chew on the book, scream, then throw i️t across the room.. BUT, we tried. And we stuck with i️t. It’s part of our bedtime routine now & he actually (usually) holds still for longer and looks at the pictures with interest and minimal screaming. 

 

Holiday (seasons, events, etc.) Book Bins 

This is my FAVORITE! Possibly because i️t feeds my slight shopping addiction.. in a productive way. In addition to the books in his room, for each holiday or season, I have gifted Jude a book or two, that relates to the season. The idea is to build up a plethora of books & keep each in their own bin, so when, for example, September hits, we pull out the fall books. On the first day of October, we bring up the Halloween books to read all month to get us pumped for Halloween. You get the idea. Each season/holiday I want to get a new book (or 3) to add to the collection, building each bin every year. 

I know as Jude gets older it will be so fun for him and his future siblings to pull out the book box for the month. Since they haven’t seen those books since the previous year, i️t will be exciting and fun to enjoy them again. 

Library Trips

Jude is still a baby. I get that, but I love the library myself and think it’s never too early to familiarize children with libraries! I go through books like candy (which means quickly, because I love candy), so a weekly library trip is not uncommon. Each time I go to check out a new book, I bring Jude along. Even though the weekly story time isn’t on our radar for a while (remember the occasional screaming at books I mentioned? not ready to bring that chaos to story time), I still love bringing Jude along to the library. 

1000 Books Before Kindergarten

In addition to story time, another awesome program almost every library in the U.S. participates in is the 1000 Books Before Kindergarten program. The name itself is pretty self explanatory, you or a family member read 1000 books to your child before the start of kindergarten! While there are countless benefits to this, the main goal of this project is to get your children ready for kindergarten. Children who are read to at home do better academically. 

I️t may sound like a lot, but it really breaks down to just a few books a week. Which is nothing, especially when your toddlers and preschoolers are wanting you to read them 10+ books a day. There are spreadsheets to keep track of your progress, this is the part where your local library comes in. At many libraries, they reward the child with a prize for meeting certain book count goals (25, 100, 200, and so on), which is a fun incentive for your older kids. 

Click Here to find a program near you!