ADVICE FOR PAR­ENTS OF EAR­LY OR EMERG­ING READERS

Here are a few tips to help ear­ly readers:

READ EVERY DAY
Find a time to read with your child every day. Even a brief dai­ly com­mit­ment can con­vey that read­ing is an impor­tant pri­or­i­ty for you.

MAKE A SPACE FOR READING
Cre­ate a com­fort­able, con­sis­tent place in your home where you can read togeth­er, enjoy books and chat about them. You might even make it a place where food and drink are wel­come — these sig­nal that read­ing can be a social activity.

MAKE READ­ING SILLY
Don’t be afraid to get sil­ly. Read­ing should be fun. Meet your child where he or she is, and don’t insist on ​“seri­ous” or ​“clas­sic” books. Sil­ly books, comics, ani­mé or oth­er art-dri­ven books are a good way to get many chil­dren inter­est­ed in read­ing. If pos­si­ble, act out or sing the words of sto­ries or find oth­er ways to enjoy books.

VIS­IT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY
Plan trips to the library. Get­ting your child a library card can get them excit­ed about books. Don’t wor­ry about read­ing every book — library trips should be fun. At first, these vis­its may sim­ply con­sist of spend­ing time wan­der­ing the rows of books and meet­ing librarians.

LIBRAR­I­ANS ARE RESOURCES
Ask librar­i­ans which books are appro­pri­ate for your child and which books kids are excit­ed about.

SEEK OUT ADAPTATIONS
Read books that are being adapt­ed into movies, and com­pare one type of media to the other.

ENCOUR­AGE WRITING
Encour­age your child to write thank-you notes, let­ters, jour­nal entries and sto­ries about their dai­ly life and expe­ri­ences. If your child is uncom­fort­able writ­ing, sug­gest that he or she cre­ate a com­ic strip.

BUILD LIT­ER­A­CY WITH OTH­ER ACTIVITIES
Enjoy puz­zles, mazes, cross­words and oth­er games, which enable your child to build lit­er­a­cy skills while hav­ing fun.

PART­NER WITH TEACHERS
Work with teach­ers to under­stand their approach to lit­er­a­cy and ask how you can help at home. Find ways to extend school lit­er­a­cy lessons when you’re home or out with your child.

LEAD BY EXAMPLE
Show your child that you love books, read­ing and writ­ing — and that you par­take in these activ­i­ties every day.

READLAND’S ROLE IN THE CAM­PAIGN FOR GRADE-LEV­EL READING
The Readland Foun­da­tion is the found­er of the Cam­paign for Read­ Aloud to children in underserved communities in Nigeria and Africa.
This is a col­lab­o­ra­tive effort by more than 15 underserved communities and Schools to move the nee­dle on ear­ly lit­er­a­cy. The ini­tia­tive calls for an inte­grat­ed approach, which start­s at birth and ensures chil­dren devel­op the social, emo­tion­al and aca­d­e­m­ic skills need­ed to read by third grade. This grade lev­el is con­sid­ered a piv­ot point in edu­ca­tion, where chil­dren shift from learn­ing to read and instead begin read­ing to learn.