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Promoting Literacy: 3- to 4-Years-Old
As your child passes his third birthday, he’ll officially leave toddlerhood behind, entering the exciting and challenging world of a preschooler. This year, as your three-year-old begins the long process of learning to read on his own, you’ll begin to see the effects of all of the pre-reading skills you’ve been fostering. For many moms and dads, this is one of the most fun and rewarding stages of parenting.
As your preschooler becomes more aware of how reading fits into his everyday life, encourage him to look for opportunities to read throughout the course of the day. Point out familiar words and phrases on cereal boxes, billboards, street signs, and grocery store displays.
If you’ve enrolled your child in preschool, his teacher will most likely be incorporating pre-reading in the curriculum, but that doesn’t mean you should stop presenting early literacy activities at home. Continue to read the favorite books he’s embraced over the past couple of years, while also introducing new titles that challenge him to expand his vocabulary and critical thinking skills.
When choosing books for your preschooler, keep the following themes in mind:
• Humor. Your three-year-old will demonstrate a more developed sense of humor, gravitating to stories that tickle his funny bone. Dr. Seuss's Wacky Wednesday and his many other zany titles are sure to get him laughing.
• Milestones. From mastering potty-training to dressing himself to starting preschool, your child is experiencing some major developmental milestones this year. Look for books that focus on these themes. Not only will they capture your preschooler’s interest, they’ll show him that other kids are facing—and triumphing over—the same challenges.
• Diversity. Most toddlers think all other kids are just like them, an assumption that’s disproven when they enter preschool. You can prepare them for this revelation by reading books that illustrate the many similarities and differences between children. Look for books that show kids of all races, nationalities, sizes, body types, and living situations. The Baby Einstein Playful Discoveries and My First Steps to Learning series both portray children and families of all different ethnicities.
• Real objects. Three-year-olds relate best to books that present familiar entities from their own world. Choose stories that incorporate cars, trucks, houses, furniture, and other familiar objects.
To help build a robust library of books for your preschooler, you might want to consider joining a book club likeDr. Seuss & His Friends. The many benefits of a book club include hand-picked recommendations of books that match your child’s age and preferences, access to the most popular titles, and convenient doorstep delivery.
As your child enters preschool, you’re no longer his only source of learning—but that doesn’t mean you should stop teaching. Your three-year-old will look to you to reinforce the lessons his teacher presents. Regular reading at home is critical to the development of early reading skills.
3-4 years old Child Development Tips
• Letter Concepts
Your three-year-old will become increasingly interested in how letters come together to form a word. You can reinforce the concept even when you’re not reading a book. As familiar words come up in conversation (dog, cat, sit, hat), spell them out verbally or write them down on a piece of paper. This will help to reinforce the concept that printed letters represent spoken words, a critical early literacy lesson.
• Text and Image Correlation
One of the most important reading concepts your child will learn this year is that when you read a book, you’re reading the printed words on the page, not the pictures. Strengthen this association by running your finger beneath the words as you narrate, illustrating that text is written from left to right. You may even take it a step further and point to individual words, indicating the spaces that separate them. Put Me in the Zoo by P.D. Eastman (in the Dr. Seuss™ & His Friends club) is an excellent choice for helping children in this age range master the skill of word recognition, as the word Zoo is creatively illustrated on almost every page. Make a game of it--challenge your child to locate the word art on each page, and then move on to finding the text version of the word.
What Comes Next?
In addition to sharing their opinions about what’s happening in a book, preschoolers begin to develop the ability to make predictions based on previous events. Help to hone this skill by pausing frequently during a story to ask your child what he thinks will happen next.
• Fill in the Blanks
Your preschooler thrives on participation, whether it’s building a tower of blocks or reading his favorite book. Encourage him to play an active role in the books you share by pausing every so often and letting him “fill in the blanks” by providing the next word. For familiar books, you might even encourage him to re-tell the rest of the story.
• Play Your Part
Role play and pretending are core activities for most preschoolers. Apply them to reading by turning story time into a theatrical performance. You and your child can act out parts in the story, adopting different accents and mannerisms for each of the characters. Not only will this help keep him engaged in the story, it will get him laughing and help to cultivate a colorful imagination. |