The Family Support Council, Inc.
P.O. Box 1707, Dalton, Georgia 30722-1707
Serving Whitfield and Murray Counties in Northwest Georgia
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The Family Support Council, Inc. P.O. Box 1707, Dalton, Georgia 30722-1707 Serving Whitfield and Murray Counties in Northwest Georgia |
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The Murray-Whitfield Early Learning Project The Family Support Council is the proud recipient of an Early Learning Opportunity Act (ELOA) grant to be implemented in Murray and Whitfield Counties through March of 2007. The enhancement of early literacy addresses one of the goals of Success By 6, an early childhood initiative already underway in our area. The Success By 6 Local Council will oversee the implementation and evaluation of the ELOA grant. The ELOA project will, among other things, distribute thousands of children's books throughout the community through multiple venues, provide the "Parents As Teachers" program to about 80 families, provide a workshop on "The Importance of Reading to Your Child" to child care centers and parent groups, and improve the quality of child care through a collaboration with Quality Care for Children/Child Care Resource and Referral. The goals of the project are:
The ELOA Grant Project Director is Mr. Tom Bartley, Success By 6 Director at the Family Support Council. For more information on M-WELP, please contact Tom at 706.272.7919. Some reading resources: Raising a child who reads well and enjoys reading is a great way to prepare your child for success in school. Reading, singing, and talking to your young children everyday helps him develop the skills he will need to become a good reader. Begin doing these things as soon as your child is born. Reading to your child not only builds your child's skills but it also enhances the time families spend together and builds the bonding process between parent and child. This information is from the Winter 2006 edition of Smart Start At Work Here Magazine. There are many things a family can do to encourage children to develop a love of reading. Make sure your home, no matter how big or small, is a great place for a growing learner. Make sure your child has:
You and other adults who love your child can help by:
As your child grows, you can expand on these experiences by:
Helping your child to enjoy reading is one of the most important things you can do as a parent and well worth the investment of your time and energy. At the Family Support Council, we have received some grant money to promote early literacy. We want to saturate the community with children's books, and get books into the hands of children who do not have many, if any, books at home. With some of the grant money, we will be purchasing new children's books. However, we would also like the community to help by donating used children's books that are in good condition. You can bring these to our office at 1529 Waring Rd. If you cannot bring them yourselves, call us at 272-7919 and we will pick them up. Raising Good Readers The ability to read is a critical skill for life. Creating an environment that values reading, writing, and language is a key to breaking the cycle of illiteracy. Children begin learning at a very early age. Reading, writing and language are not learned as a set of isolated skills but as a part of everyday life. This information is from an article by Molly S. Kinney, head of public library services at Nova Southeastern University. Here are some tips to help you support your child's learning:
Read every day and visit the library often. Set aside time each day to read aloud to your child. Turn off the TV and radio. Don't answer the phone. Focus all your attention on reading to your child. Just 20 minutes a day can make a big difference in children's learning. A child who is read to 20 minutes a day will hear one million words a year. If you establish a reading routine early, your child will develop a reading habit for life. Weekly visits to the library reinforce the importance of reading. The public library offers programs that introduce age appropriate books and other activities to build early literacy for children and role modeling for adults. Read to Your Baby! It is very important to begin reading to children in infancy. You may wonder what the benefits of reading to your baby are. Clearly he or she can't understand what you are doing or why. But you wouldn't wait until your child could understand what you were saying before you started speaking to him or her, and you wouldn't wait until he or she could shake a rattle before you offered any toys either. Much of the following information on "Reading to Babies" comes from the Kids Health website. At birth, a baby's brain can do a lot, especially stuff to keep the body running properly, but it isn't fully developed. the more the senses are stimulated, the more quickly the rest of a baby's brain will develop. So reading aloud to your baby is a wonderful shared activity you can continue for years to come--and it's an important form of brain stimulation. Reading aloud:
By the time your baby is one, he or she will have learned all the sounds needed to speak your native language. The more stories you read aloud, the more words your child will be exposed to and the better he or she will be able to talk. Hearing words helps to imprint them on a baby's brain. Studies have shown that a child who is read to just 20 minutes a day from the time he is a baby will hear one million words in a year. When reading, your child hears you using many different emotions and expressive sounds, which fosters communication and emotional development. Reading also invites your baby to look, point, touch, and answer questions--all of which promote social development. And your baby develops thinking skills by imitating sounds or repetitive words and recognizing images. But perhaps the most important reason to read aloud is that you are helping to make a connection between the things your baby loves the most--your voice and closeness to you--and books. Spending time reading to your baby shows that reading is a skill worth learning. Very young babies may not know what the images in a book mean, but they are still able to focus on them, especially on black and white patterns. A newborn looking at a book is taking the first step toward picture recognition, which is an important skill for reading. Between 4 and 6 months, your baby may begin to show focused interest in books, especially those with bright colors and repetitive or rhyming text. He or she probably still doesn't understand what the pictures are, but again, you are preparing your baby to learn to read. After 6 months, your child is beginning to understand that pictures represent objects, and most likely will develop preferences for certain pictures, pages, or even entire stories. Your baby will respond while you read, grabbing for the book and cooing, and by 12 months will turn pages for you, point to objects on a page, and maybe even say "moo!" when you point to a cow. Here's the really beautiful thing about reading aloud: it doesn't take special skills or equipment, just you, your baby, and a book. Read aloud for a few minutes at a time, but do it often. Don't worry about finishing entire books--focus on pages that you and your baby enjoy. Try to set aside time to read every day--a good time is before bedtime. In addition to the pleasure that cuddling your baby before bed gives both of you, you'll also be making life easier by establishing a routine. This will help calm your baby and set expectations about when it's time to sleep. It's also good to read at other points in the day. Choose when your baby is dry, fed, and alert. Books also come in handy when you are stuck waiting, so have some in the diaper bag to fill time sitting at the doctor's office or standing in line at the grocery store. Here are some additional reading tips:
Books for babies should have simple, repetitive text and clear images. Your newborn just likes to hear your voice, so you can read almost anything, especially books in a sing-song or rhyming text. As your baby gets more interested in looking at things, choose books with simple pictures against solid backgrounds. Once your baby begins to grab, read thick board books with bright colors. When your baby begins to respond to what's inside of books, add board books with pictures of babies or familiar objects like toys. When your child begins to do things like sit up in the bathtub or eat finger foods, find simple stories about daily routines like bedtime, bath time, or meal time. When talking starts, choose books that invite him or her to repeat simple words or phrases. Books with mirrors and different textures (crinkly, soft, scratchy) are also great for this age group, as are fold-out books that can be propped up, or vinyl or cloth books that can go everywhere--even the bathtub. Babies of any age like photo albums with pictures of people they know and love. And every baby should have a collection of nursery rhymes! In fact, studies have shown that a 3-year olds knowledge of the following 5 nursery rhymes predict future success in phonemic awareness and reading acquisition:
One of the best ways you can ensure that your child grows up to be a reader is to have books around your house. When your baby is old enough to crawl over to a basket of toys and pick one out, make sure some books are included in the mix. In addition to the books you own, take advantage of those you can borrow from the library. Many libraries have story time just for babies too. And don't forget to pick up a book for yourself while you're there. Reading for pleasure is another way you can be your baby's reading role model Reading Development: How Parents Can Help in the K-3 Years From kindergarten to third grade, a child's reading ability grows by leaps and bounds. Parents can continue to play an important role in their child's reading development during this time. Much of this information is taken from the Kids Health website on "school-age readers." A child first learning to read gets more information from being read to than by reading independently. And even as a child's reading skills improve, reading aloud can foster a sense of closeness between parent and child and help improve vocabulary and reading skills. When a parent encourages a child to talk about characters and share reactions to books, that parent is reinforcing the connection between books and their child's own life. After entering school and starting formal reading instruction, it's usually only a matter of time before a child learns to read. Following is a progression of how reading develops from kindergarten to third grade. Kindergarten: Children "read" stories by looking at pictures and relying on memory. By the end of the school year, many will be able to read simple text. First grade: Most kids learn to recognize the printed word. Children will sound out words, recognize some by sight, and know what they mean. Most first graders can read simple books independently by the end of the school year. Second and third grade: By this point, children may be reading independently, using books to explore new ideas, learning about the world around them, reading aloud more expressively, and enjoying specific authors and types of books. What to read: As your child becomes a more confident reader, continue to introduce a wide range of books: those that he can read alone as well as those above his reading level. With this mix, your child can re-read some of these books independently, while you will have to do the reading with challenging ones that allow your child to enjoy a more sophisticated story. Let your child's interest lead the way when you are choosing books. As your child gets older, you will find that he enjoys increasingly complex books. Talk about the books your child is reading in school and independently and about favorite authors. If the author writes a series of books, your child may want to read them all. Some kids enjoy keeping a checklist of favorite authors' books. Other types of books your child may enjoy include: biographies, books about kids dealing with challenges, mysteries and science fiction. Children in school have busy schedules. You may have dinner on the go as you run from soccer practice to music lessons. But, it you can find 20 to 30 minutes a day to read with your child, you will be helping to ensure his future reading success. Use the same strategies you did when your child was younger. Talk about what you read before, during and after. Ask open-ended questions. Read expressively and with enjoyment. At this age, you will want to let your child read to you some. A good strategy is to take turns reading. But be sure to read to your child those books he still is not able to read himself. Reading aloud is not the only way to encourage children to read. Provide other chances such as cooking together and letting your child read the recipe. Or when you play a new game, ask your child to read the directions aloud. Be sure your child has a dictionary for kids so he can look up definitions of new words. When your child has a question about a famous person or how something works, help him look up the answers in an encyclopedia or online. Your child should have a library card and lots of opportunities to use it. As your child gets older and spends less time with you, reading together can be a way for you to connect on a regular basis. Talking about books gives you a window into your child's imagination and offers opportunities for you to find out what your child thinks about the world. Raising Good Readers As I've said previously, The Family Support Council has received a grant for early literacy enhancement in our community. As part of that effort, I have been doing several columns on the importance of laying the foundation for your children to become good readers. Raising good readers takes a little time, not money. You do not need to buy expensive and complicated systems for teaching your preschoolers reading. At best, most of these are a waste of money; at worst, they may actually discourage a child because they can be boring. Following are some time-tested tips on how to raise good readers. Start reading to children at a very early age, basically as soon as they are able to sit in your lap. You may need to start with 5 minutes and gradually work up to 20 or 30 minutes. Of course, a 6 month old is not going to understand the words of Dr. Seuss, but he will in time think of reading as a pleasurable activity and associate it with your love and warmth. He will also begin learning the basics of books: that they tell a story, that each page contains information, that the letters have meaning. When reading to your children, it's important to be flexible. You may want to begin at the beginning of the book. He may want to begin in the middle or at the end. He may want to stay on one page and study it intently. Don't worry about any of this. It's not important to finish reading the book every time. Establish quiet times and places at home for reading. A comfortable chair and good lighting are all that is necessary. Remember, turn the TV off during reading times! For variety, look for different places for your daily reading time: under the dining room table, under a tree in the backyard, in a hammock, or spread a blanket on the floor and have an indoor reading picnic. Once a week, on a Friday or Saturday night when your child can sleep a little later the next morning, let him stay up a little later as long as he's reading or looking at books in bed. As your child gets older, don't forget children's magazines. There are wonderful ones available. A year's subscription is usually quite reasonable and makes a great present as well as giving further encouragement to read. In addition, most children love the fact that they have their very own "mail" coming in on a regular basis. While there's certainly nothing wrong with buying lots of good books for your kids, don't think that unless you shell out big bucks, you will forever stunt their intellectual growth. Many fine children's books are available in paperback versions at reasonable prices. Look for used book sales as well. Visit the library often. Getting a library card costs nothing. In addition to encouraging your child to read, you will also be teaching a valuable lesson about responsibility. Your child has to keep the library books in good condition and get them back on time. The library will also have story hour, which helps to reinforce the feeling that reading is fun. In addition, libraries have reading clubs for children and often reward children for reading a certain number of books. Reading is its own reward, but sometimes a little recognition helps! Give your children a reason to read. If your son is a budding basketball fan, look for sports books. If your daughter loves animals, try nature stories. Youngsters have a much greater incentive when they are engaged in subject matter. All children will not take to reading the same way. Your daughter may be the type who reads the classics under the covers at night with a flashlight. Your son may limit his recreational reading to comic books and the "funny papers." It's virtually impossible to enforce taste standards as children get older. Just be glad they're reading something and make sure they have plenty of opportunities to move up to a higher level when and if they are ready. Teach by example. If you are a couch potato in front of the TV, your child will probably be one too. On the other hand, if your child sees you happily reading a good book, the newspaper, or a magazine, he will get the idea you not only preach about the joy of reading, but you practice it as well. Finally, even after your children are proficient and eager readers, keep reading to them. Try books that may be a little bit beyond their reach at the moment, such as "Treasure Island" or "Little Women." After awhile, reading together gets to be a habit that no one wants to give up. With these opportunities that you offer your children, you can be confident that they are gaining the cognitive, emotional, social, and physical benefits of play. And don't forget the main reason children should have plenty of play time: it's fun! Though it may be a challenge in the seemingly nonstop world in which we live, you should do everything you can to allow your children to play with their friends spontaneously and freely as often as possible. |
