I Can READ

New!* Early Literacy Practice: Write	New!* Early Literacy Practice: Play	Early Literacy Practice: Talk	Early Literacy Practice: Sing
For Ages 0 to 12 months	For Ages 1 to 3 years	For Ages 4 to 6 years

(Updated Oct 2022)

Early Literacy Practice: Write

Tips For Developing Writing Skills (Ages 2-4)

• At the pre-writing stage, children do not need to write legibly – being able to scribble or trace is a good start.
• Choose books with finger-trails, large numbers or letters that provide opportunities for children to practice tracing.
• Try to model writing for your child. Introduce them to the conventions of writing – from left to right of the page and from top to bottom.

Early Literacy Activities You Can Do With Your Child

• Let your child explore coloring. Using crayons and paper, encourage your child to colour or scribble. This simple activity helps to build their motor skills.
• Let your child learn to write their name through finger- painting. Write out your child’s name on a paper. Have your child trace over what you have written with child-friendly non-toxic paint.

Watch Me!
Learn about the importance of writing in early literacy and the different activities you can do with your child to encourage their literacy development.

Source: Early Literacy: Writing. YouTube (2015). Library Video Network, Baltimore County Public Library. Retrieved 2022, March 21.

LET'S READ!

The copyright to all book covers belong to the relevant publishers or illustrators.

Try this!

Click here to download a copy of the activity sheet.

Early Literacy Practice: Play

Tips For Encouraging Play (Ages 4-6)

• Try books with pictures of familiar characters, like animals, children or adults in familiar roles. Look for books that have action pictures - your baby is starting to be able to enjoy pictures with more details.
• Choose books with songs and repetitive verses. Books that have a simple story line that relates to your child’s own experiences will also be appealing to them.

Early Literacy Activities You Can Do With Your Child

• Together with your child, use playdough to make the letters of the alphabet or numbers.
• Play games like ‘I spy’ using colours. This can be lots of fun, especially for preschoolers. For example, ‘I spy with my little eye, something that’s blue. What’s something blue I might be looking at?’.

Watch Me!
Playing has many benefits for early literacy development. Learn how you can build upon your child’s vocabulary and narrative skills through play.

Source: Library Early Literacy Video Series - Playing. YouTube (2015). City of Bellingham, Washington. Retrieved 2022, March 21.

LET'S READ!

The copyright to all book covers belong to the relevant publishers or illustrators.

Try this!

Click here to download a copy of the activity sheet.

Early Literacy Practice: Talk

Tips for Talking and Communication (Ages 0 to 3)

• Nurture your babbling baby into a talkative toddler by talking and reading to them often.
• Read aloud and encourage your child to read along with you. Initiate conversations about stories by asking, “What do you see on this page?”
• Make strong connections to what your child sees in books and in their environment. Your child will be excited to point these things out!

Early Literacy Activities You Can Do With Your Child

• Make different animal sounds with your child such as moo, baa, hiss, neigh, and meow. Take turns making an animal sound and talking about the animal that produces it.
• Talk about emotions with your child. Ask, “How are you feeling?” and teach them some words to describe their feelings e.g. mad, sad, glad. Come up with a Feelings and Emotions chart, with images of different facial expressions next to each emotion for your child to identify.

Watch Me!
Learn about the importance of writing in early literacy and the different activities you can do with your child to encourage their literacy development.

Source: Early Literacy: Talking YouTube (2015). Library Video Network, Baltimore County Public Library. Retrieved 2022, March 21.

LET'S READ!

All book covers are copyright of the respective publishing companies.

Try this!

Click here to download a copy of the activity sheet.

Early Literacy Practice: Sing

Tips for Encouraging Singing (Ages 0 to 3)

• Singing helps your child learn how to hear smaller sounds in words, developing phonological awareness which will help your child learn to read. Don’t be afraid of being silly or singing off-key!
• Read books that can be sung. These can include nursery and finger rhymes, poems, books that promote singing, or books that can be sung to a specific tune.

Early Literacy Activities You Can Do With Your Child

• Sing nursery rhymes to your child. As you sing, touch your child’s toes, knees, shoulders, head and so on. You can also get your child to clap, dance, and sway to the rhythm of the music.
• Gather objects or pictures that rhyme with each other and ask your child to name them. You can even add an odd one out for your child to identify the different sounds made by the various words.

Watch Me!
Singing has many benefits for early literacy development. Learn how you can build upon your child’s phonological awareness and narrative skills through singing.

Source: Early Literacy: Singing. YouTube (2015). Library Video Network, Baltimore County Public Library. Retrieved 2022, March 21.

LET'S READ!

All book covers are copyright of the respective publishing companies.

Try this!

Clickhere to download a copy of the activity sheet.

For Ages 0 to 12 Months

What is Early Literacy?
Early Literacy is what children know about reading or writing before they actually learn to read and write. There are six pre-reading skills that a child needs to develop to become a reader. These skills are in turn supported by the five Early Literacy Practices which are READ, PLAY, SING, TALK, WRITE!

Tips for Selecting Books
Choose books with:
• bright and bold illustrations set against a contrasting background
• lift-the-flap or pop-up features to delight and engage your baby
• touch and feel elements to help your baby explore the sense of touch and learn how different things feel

Early Literacy Activities
• Sing to your baby everyday and fill your rhymes with funny sound effects and different voices
• Name body parts during bath time or diaper changing time
• Play ‘What’s in the Bag?’ game. Place 4-6 toys/household objects in a bag. Get your baby to pull out any objects from the bag. Say out loud the name of the object.

Tips for Parents
Infants will enjoy looking through wordless picture books or books that have just a single word alongside an eye-catching illustration.

Watch Me!
Learning to read starts from infancy. Help your child develop the love of reading through books, songs and daily experiences that are vital in the development of your baby’s early literacy skills.

Read, Speak, Sing: Your baby and early literacy

Source: Read, Speak, Sing: Your baby and early literacy YouTube (2015, Jan 27). Canadian Paediatric Society. Retrieved 2021, November 5.

Recommended Books

Title: Little Farm Animals
Author: Sally Symes & Nick Sharratt (Illustrator)
Publisher: London: Walker Books Ltd, 2021.

Enjoy and encourage imaginative play with your baby in this joyful finger wiggle book! Poke your fingers through the holes of this brilliant board book to make wiggly legs for eight adorable animals as they go about their day on the farm! The little hen lays eggs, the little goat chews socks, the little duck goes for a paddle and the horse jumps over a wall - all with a little bit of help from you and your baby as you share the joy of reading together.

Title: Row, Row, Row Your Boat: A lift-the-flap, sing-along book
Author: Pat-a-Cake & Richard Merritt (Illustrator)
Publisher: London : Pat-a-Cake, 2018.

Row, Row, Row Your Boat combines lively pictures with a classic rhyme that’s easy for parents and carers to recognise and recite. Young children will adore searching the page for flaps to open while singing along. The spotting game at the end is a great incentive to go through the pages once again until each tiny thing is found!

Title: The Shapes of Spring
Author: Jill Hoarth
Publisher: New York, NY : Running Press Kids, an imprint of Running Press Books, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc., [2020]

A spring-themed board book that includes Easter eggs, bunnies, chicks, and more while teaching toddlers about basic shapes. Oval painted eggs hidden in the yard. Circular chicks bouncing in spring meadows. Rectangular teeth on a fluffy white bunny, spreading spring-time cheer to all. Help little ones identify basic shapes while spreading some joy this spring!

Try this at Home!

Click here to download a copy of the activity sheet.

Back to top

For Ages 1 to 3 Years

Tips for Selecting Books
• Choose books that feature objects that are part of their everyday lives. For example, familiar situation such as going to school, running around the playground and visiting the supermarket.
• Read rhyming books or books with repetitive phrases. This helps them to predict what comes next.
• Choose books with simple story line and stories with familiar characters.

Early Literacy Activities
• Get your child to make the letters of the alphabet or numbers using playdough
• Play ‘I Spy’ game. For example, ‘I spy with my little eye, something that is blue. What is something blue I might be looking at?’.
• Play rhyming games by asking your child to come up with pairs of words that sound similar.

Tips for Parents
Set time to read daily with your child. Reading stories at bedtime is a great way to get reading into their daily routine.

Watch Me!
Ms. Lena, a children’s librarian from Wichita Public Library, shares ways on how to foster the love of reading in your child.

Build early literacy skills by reading to your child

Source: Build early literacy skills by reading to your child YouTube (2017, Oct 25). Wichita Public Library. Retrieved 2021, November 5.

Recommended Books

Title: Red House, Three House, Little Bitty Brown Mouse
Author: Jane Godwin & Blanca Gomez (Illustrator)
Publisher: New York : Dial Books for Young Readers, [2019].
A bit Each Peach Pear Plum, a bit Go, Dog, Go!, this read-aloud joy is deceptively simple yet packed with delights for the very young–a preschool standout deserving of modern-classic status.

Title: Angry Bear
Author: Naira Wilson & David Creighton-Pester(Illustrator)
Publisher: London : Little Tiger Press Ltd, 2021.
This tactile touch-and-feel book introduces emotions to even the youngest child, with a particular focus on being angry. Written by a child psychologist who specialises in children’s emotions, this is a hugely helpful tool for parents and kids alike - and a lot of fun!

Title: Rainforest Rhymes
Publisher: Sywell [UK] : Autumn Publishing, an imprint of Igloo Books Group, [2019]
Trace along the trail with your finger as you enjoy beloved nursery rhymes with the Fisher-Price animal friends!

Try this at Home!

Click here to download a copy of the activity sheet.

Back to top

For Ages 4 to 6 Years

Tips for Selecting Books
• Choose books with longer storylines. Try choosing contemporary realistic fiction titles that describe situations that children can overcome and relate to.
• Choose books where the main character is the same age as your child
• Choose wordless books that allow your child to describe or narrate the actions and events in the story

Early Literacy Activities
• Talk about the stories you have read with your child. ‘What was the story about?’. ‘If you are the author, how would you end the story?’.
• Ask your child to come up with words that start with the same letter as the word you are reading.
• Spend time with your child to make a storybook using their own drawings.

Tips for Parents
When reading aloud, engage your child actively by asking questions, discussing what is happening and making predictions about the plot or the ending.

Watch Me!
This video explains the building blocks of early literacy and ways on how parents can foster learning through simple reading related activities that can be done at home.

Early Literacy Skills - Everything Parents Need to Know

Source: The Institute of Reading Development [Reading Programs]. (2019, March 2). Early Literacy Skills - Everything Parents Need to Know [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS5q9n2Pur0

Recommended Books

Title: Gruff the Grump
Author: Steve Smallman & Cee Biscoe (Illustrator)
Publisher: Wilton, CT : Tiger Tales, 2021.
Gruff is one great, big, scowly, growly grizzly grump of a bear. In fact, he’s so grumpy that all the forest animals call him Gruff the Grump. But Gruff doesn’t care. Plus, his grumpy reputation is perfect for keeping the other forest animals out of his way. Except, that is, for one disarmingly-earnest little rabbit, whose winning ways find in Gruff a big, kind friend.


Title: Crunch, The Shy Dinosaur
Author: Cirocco Dunlap & Greg Pizzoli (Illustrator)
Publisher: New York : Random House Studio, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, [2021].
Crunch is a lovely and quiet brontosaurus who has hidden himself in some shubbery and is rather shy. He would like to play, but it will require some gentle coaxing from you! If you are patient and encouraging, you will find yourself with a new friend! This picture book is a warm, funny example of how to engage with someone new, who is perhaps a bit different from you.

Title: The Very Lazy Ladybird
Author: Isobel Finn & Jack Tickle (Illustrator)
Publisher: Wilton, CT : Tiger Tales, 2021.
Ladybug is so lazy that she doesn’t know how to fly. She wants to find a new place to sleep and decides to ride on passing animals. But Kangaroo’s pouch is too bumpy, and Crocodile’s tail is too wet. When she hops onto Elephant’s trunk, she gets a big surprise!

Try this at Home!

Click here to download a copy of the activity sheet.

Back to top

References:

1. Early literacy: Early literacy skills. Info Guides. (n.d.). Retrieved November 6, 2021, from https://guides.wpl.winnipeg.ca/earlyliteracy/skills.

2. National Center for Family Literacy. (2018). Tips for Parents: Choosing Books for Infants and Toddlers. Early Childhood Learning and Knowledge Centre. Retrieved October 15, 2021, from https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/parenting/article/tips-parents-choosing-books-infants-toddlers

3. Ministry of Social and Family Development, Singapore. (2018, March 28). Literacy Activities for Children. Parenting Resources for You. Retrieved October 15, 2021, from https://www.babybonus.msf.gov.sg/parentingresources/web/Babies/BabiesPlayandLearning/BabiesActivities/BabiesLiteracyActivities

4. Children’s Trust of Massachusetts. (n.d.). Choosing Books for Your Child: Preschoolers 3–5 Years. Onetoughjob a Children’s Trust Programme. Retrieved October 15, 2021, from https://www.onetoughjob.org/articles/choosing-books-for-your-child-preschoolers-3-5-years

The book covers and synopses are the copyright of the respective publishing companies.