Dad is sitting on the sofa, reading the newspaper. (The children go to the library with their mother at least once a month.) There are puzzles, a magnetic board with letters, and, in a canvas bag, some plastic farm animals-treasured for pretend play. In the corner there is a little bookshelf with 20 or so children’s books, including 3 that are due back to the library the next day. Although their home is modest, these children have what they need to promote good language and literacy skills: a simple but appropriate array of toys and books and, most importantly, attentive parents. His older sister Rosa has been watching TV and is playing with her blocks and dinosaurs in the living room. Three-year-old Carlos has just awakened from a nap and is lying on the floor, not fully awake yet.
In this chapter, we offer concrete examples, activities, and ideas for how families, early childhood educators, health care professionals, and communities can bring literacy into the lives of young children. The best time to start sharing books with children is during babyhood, even when they are as young as six weeks. To prepare children for reading instruction in the early grades, it is best that they be exposed to high-quality language and literacy environments-in their homes, day care centers, and preschools.
Research reveals that the children most at risk for reading difficulties in the primary grades are those who began school with less verbal skill, less phonological awareness, less letter knowledge, and less familiarity with the basic purposes and mechanisms of reading. The more children already know about the nature and purposes of reading before kindergarten, the more teachers have to build on in their reading instruction. When an infant shows excitement over pictures in a storybook, when a two-year-old scribbles with a crayon, when a four-year-old points out letters in a street sign-all of these actions signal a child’s growing literacy development. Even their babbles and coos and the ways their families speak to them before they really understand can help them to become speakers of their native tongue. Children begin to develop their language skills in infancy.
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