Parent's Guide to Supporting Literacy at Home

As a parent, you play a pivotal role in your child’s journey to becoming a proficient reader. This guide is designed to empower you with effective strategies and resources to support your child’s literacy development at home, aligning with the Science of Language and Reading (SOLAR) principles.

Building the Foundation for Lifelong Reading

Using Decodable Books at Home

Guiding Young Readers Through Structured Text

Decodable books are tailored to your child’s phonics skills, allowing them to apply their reading skills in a structured manner. Choose books that align with your child’s word-reading abilities and interests. As they read, prompt them to sound out words. Celebrate their successes and gently guide them through challenges, making reading a positive experience.

Everyday Literacy Activities

Integrating Literacy into Daily Life

Incorporate literacy into everyday activities to make learning enjoyable. When looking at letters or words together, emphasize the sounds that letters represent. When reading together, point out similarities between sounds in words (e.g., cat and kid both start with the /k/ sound). See if your child can identify the first or last sound in words.  Engage in storytelling, pointing out story structures like the beginning, middle, and end. Play word games during car rides or while cooking to build vocabulary.

Think of oral language and literacy as "inseparable friends" who take turns to piggy- back on each other during the school years and beyond. - Pamela Snow, 2016

Language is literacy is language!

In the early years, oral language lays the foundation for developing literacy skills. Once children learn to read, their oral language grows from exposure to the rich and diverse language found in text. If you have concerns about a child's literacy skills, it is always advisable to consider their oral language abilities. Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) can help with this!

Curated Resources for Home Literacy

Selecting the Right Tools for Your Child

Our range of at-home literacy resources includes more than just books. Discover interactive games and activity books that make learning to read fun and engaging. These resources have been carefully chosen for their educational value and alignment with SOLAR principles, ensuring they support your child’s literacy development effectively.

A Great Place to Start

Dandelion Launchers by Phonic Books is an excellent choice for initiating at-home literacy, offering a systematic and progressive phonics structure that aligns perfectly with early reading stages, making them an ideal resource for parents eager to support their children's budding reading skills in an engaging and effective manner.

Dandelion Launchers Stages 1-7
Dandelion Launchers Stages 1-7
Dandelion Launchers Stages 1-7
Dandelion Launchers Stages 1-7
Dandelion Launchers Stages 1-7
Dandelion Launchers Stages 1-7
Dandelion Launchers Stages 1-7

Dandelion Launchers Stages 1-7

Dandelion Launchers Stages 1-7

Regular price $55.00 CAD
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*New Revised Covers*

Aimed at children aged 4-7 each book introduces only a few letter/sounds at a time allowing independent reading from the outset.

Seven stages with two books at each stage provide practice whilst offering different stories. Each stage introduces new letters/sounds while supporting previously taught phonic letters/sounds and high-frequency words. 

Book 1a: I Am Sam (Stage 1: s, a, t, i, m)
Book 1b: On the Mat (Stage 1: s, a, t, i, m)
Book 2a: A Man (Stage 2: n, o, p)
Book 2b: A Map (Stage 2: n, o, p) 
Book 3a: Bob (Stage 3: b, c, g, h)
Book 3b: Pam and the Cat (Stage 3: b, c, g, h)
Book 4a: The Fib (Stage 4: d, e, f, v)
Book 4b: Bob and the Cod (Stage 4: d, e, f, v)
Book 5a: The Bus (Stage 5: k, l, r, u)
Book 5b: Mud (Stage 5: k, l, r, u)
Book 6a: Viv Can Run (Stage 6: j, w, z)
Book 6b: A Bad Job (Stage 6: j, w, z)
Book 7a: Bob on the Sill (Stage 7: x, y, ff, ll, ss, zz)
Book 7b: The Hill (Stage 7: x, y, ff, ll, ss, zz)

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