Early Efforts To Write

Writing is another important part of language. When he is about 2 years old, give your child crayons and paper to draw and scribble on. He will have fun choosing which colors to use and shapes to make. He will also be learning muscle control. When he is a late toddler or early preschooler, he will grow as eager to write as he is to read. The two skills go hand in hand. As he is learning one, he learns the other. You can do certain things to make sure he gets every opportunity to practice both. (See As Simple as ABC and Write On! for ideas on how to encourage your child's desire to write.)

Your young preschool child's scribbles or drawings are his first writing. He will soon begin writing the alphabet letters. Writing them helps your child learn about their different sounds. In fact, his very early learning about letters and sounds gives him ideas about how to begin spelling words. When he begins writing them down, don't worry that they are not spelled correctly. Instead, praise him! Because if you look closely, you'll see that he's made a pretty good try at spelling a word for the first time. With help from teachers (and you) later on, he will learn the right way to spell. Right now, he has taken a great step toward being a writer!

Reading in Another Language

If your child's first language is not English, she can still become an excellent English reader and writer. She is a step ahead if she is beginning to learn many words and is interested in learning to read in her first language. You can help by supporting her in her first language as she learns English. Talk with her, read with her, encourage her to draw and write. In other words, do the same kinds of activities mentioned before, but do them in your child's first language.

When your child first enters school, you may want to talk with her teacher. Schools welcome such talks. Teachers even have sign-up times early in the year, though you may usually ask for a meeting at any time. If it will help, ask a relative, neighbor, or someone else in your community to go with you.

When you go, tell the teacher the things you are doing at home to strengthen your child's speaking and reading in her own language.

Let the teacher know how important this is to you and ask for help. Children who can switch back and forth between languages have accomplished something special. We should praise and support them as they work for this achievement.

See Resources for multiple language books .

Activities

What follows are ideas for language activities. You can do them with your child to help her build the skills she needs to become a reader. Most public libraries offer free use of books, magazines, videos, computers, and other services. Other things you might need for these activities are not expensive.

For each set of activities, we show an age span suggesting when children should try them. From one activity to the next, we continue to talk about children at different stages: babies (birth to 1 year), toddlers (1 to 3 years), preschoolers (ages 3 and 4), and kindergartner/early first-graders (ages 5 and 6). Remember that children don't always learn the same things at the same speed. And they don't suddenly stop doing one thing and start doing another just because they are a little older. So, the ages given are just rough guides for you to use as your child learns and grows.

You'll see that your role in the activities will change, too. Just as you hold your child up when she's learning to walk, you will help her a lot when she's taking her first language steps. As she grows, you will gradually let goand she will take more and more language steps on her own. That is why in most of the activities it says, "The first activities . . . work well with younger children. As your child grows older, the later activities let him do more."

As a parent, you can help your child want to learn in a way no one else can. That desire to learn is a key to her later success. Enjoyment is important! So, if you and your child don't enjoy one activity, move on to something else. You can always go back later.