Literacy Development: Writing and Reading

The best way to get your child interested in reading and writing is to demonstrate that you enjoy doing both. Let him see you reading for pleasure (even if you only have time for a very limited amount of this sort of thing these days). Read to him as soon as he can sit propped up in your lap. Once he is older, talk about books you have read in front of him. Let him choose books at the library as well as the books he wants you to read at story time. Buy him books as gifts. Give him plenty of materials for drawing, scribbling, and writing. Write him little messages and put them in his lunch box.

Writing

Children who have been read to from an early age and who have observed their parents writing in the home understand that drawing and writing communicate ideas. The development of small-motor skills provides children of preschool age with the manual dexterity required to draw and write. Children will often write before they read if given the opportunity, the encouragement, and the materials. Learning to communicate through writing helps children to develop self-esteem and autonomy.

Young children are frequently interested in learning their letters. If you help them with this, and if you provide them with markers, crayons, and paper, they will often pretend to write using the various letters they know. Before I went to kindergarten, I remember experimenting with various combinations of letters and asking my mother “Is this a word?” “Is this a word?” Eventually, I wrote the word, “Noah.” I was very proud!

As children learn the sounds of the letters, given encouragement, they will start to use them to form words. At the beginning, they are likely to use only the first or the last letter of the word (“b” may mean “bed” or “book”), and then they will probably use both the first and last letter of the word (“bd” or “bk”). Later, they’ll start to fill in the other consonants (“btl” means “bottle). Finally, some of the vowels will appear (“botl”). Parents should not demand correct spelling of young children. Rather, they should make every attempt to learn to read their child’s writing, as this provides a great deal of motivation for the child to continue (“I wt to go to bd” means, “I want to go to bed.”).

It is important to note that early writing may not be horizontal or left-to-right in orientation, and spacing between letters and words may be irregular or nonexistent. Parents who recognize that the letters b, p, d, and q are very similar and may be interchanged are more likely to be able to read young children’s writing. Also, it is important to realize that the reversal of letters is common and is not necessarily an indicator of dyslexia.

Model writing by offering to put captions on your child’s drawings for him. Also, encourage your child’s early attempts at writing by suggesting that he write about his trip to the zoo or other outing, helping him if he requests it. At some point, he will probably try to do this himself. Provide plenty of praise for his early attempts at writing.

Elementary-age children will progress in their spelling from the “invented spellings” that they used in their writing in preschool and kindergarten to conventional spelling as they learn rules in the elementary grades. Parents should not be too quick to correct children’s invented spellings. Rather, they should help children understand the difference between “invented” spelling and “adult” spelling and offer to provide “adult” spelling if asked.

Reading

Reading to children from infancy is important for their language development and for their later development of pre-reading and reading skills. It also develops your child’s attention span. But it also should be done just because it promotes closeness between you and your child. Choose a comfy place to read and snuggle with your child as you read to him. Try to read for at least fifteen minutes a day. My children used to love story time so much that I had to limit the number of books I’d read to them at bedtime, or I would have been reading all night.

At first, you can read anything to a baby. It almost doesn’t matter. It’s the sounds of the words and the colorful pictures that are important. You might want to choose books that you enjoyed as a child. Also look for musical books, touch-and-smell books, and point-and-say books. Nursery rhymes are also attractive to babies because of the sounds of the rhyming words. The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease is a good resource for parents when trying to find good books to read to their children.

Later, when the child is old enough to “help” you read a book by turning the pages, board books, cloth books, and bath books are impervious to the ravages of “helpful” little hands. At a certain age, children will offer to “read” a well-known book to their parent (and they will be amazingly accurate in their rendition). Most children of this age enjoy a trip to the library to pick out books.

Wordless picture books are enjoyable to “read” with your child as well. My children’s favorite was Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie de Paola. You tell the story inspired by the pictures. Your child can help tell the story as well. Try taking turns with pages.

Preschoolers can enjoy predicting what will come next in a new book. Being able to make predictions and then seeing if they turn out to be true is a tool for helping your child associate reading with meaning. Also, reading books to your child that are slightly above his level is good for vocabulary development. When an unknown word appears, you can ask, “Do you know what a ’marsupial’ is?” And if he doesn’t, you can explain it to him. Don’t do this too often in one story, however, as it can interfere with the child’s enjoyment of the book.

Eventually, by pointing to the words as you read, your child will come to understand directionality in printed matter, and he will develop a concept of “word.” With repetition, he will start to recognize words on the page. Predicting what will happen in books helps children develop a concept of “story.” These are all important “pre-reading” and reading skills.

Children who are encouraged to read their own writing to parents and teachers will be motivated to learn to read in beginning readers. If parents have pointed to words as they have read to children in the early years, children will begin to recognize individual words. As words are recognized, parents can put them on index cards and add them to the child’s sight word “bank.”

Gradually, with the help of their sight word “bank,” children will make an attempt to decode unknown words. Once children are making an attempt to figure out unknown words, they can be encouraged to use a variety of strategies including context clues, picture clues, asking a reader, and sounding out. It is important for parents to recognize that in order to develop strong reading comprehension skills, they must be encouraged not simply to “call” words but to derive meaning from text.

You can even read aloud to children who can already read if they’ll let you. Try offering to read longer books or books above their reading level to them in parts. My mother read Mary Poppins and the Winnie the Pooh books to me when I was little, and I loved them. These days, children may want to hear the Harry Potter books before they can read them on their own. While reading more challenging books to your child, you can ask him if he knows what various words mean, and you can discuss similes and metaphors used by the author and whether they “work” for the child. Don’t overdo it, though, or you’ll spoil the story. As a change of pace, you can let your child read to you.