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
Creating a Literacy-Rich Environment at Home
Your daily interactions with your child lay the groundwork for literacy. Read together regularly, discussing stories and characters to enhance comprehension. Encourage your child to express themselves through storytelling and family discussions. Surround your child with a variety of reading materials to pique their interest and cater to their developmental level.
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.
