Parents are children’s first teachers because they are primarily responsible for developing children’s basic literacy and language skills. Children may acquire language in different ways; however, it is crucial to pay enough attention to form a proper understanding of the grammar and language used in a child. Parents may contribute to forming a child’s language literacy by conducting several activities at home. Such activities as reading to a child, remaking a picture book, looking at environmental prints, and playing with magnetic letters might increase the child’s literacy level and improve their language skills and knowledge.
The first activity is simple but still essential, and that is reading to a child. By reading to a child, a parent develops their pre-reading skills. According to the study carried out by Napoli and Purpura (2018), acquiring pre-reading skills at home affects the children’s literacy and language outcomes. These skills will make reading easier and more comfortable for a child in the future. A parent might choose a book by himself or ask a child for his preferences. While reading, a parent may emphasize the meaning of particular words to ask a child to repeat words after them. In addition, a parent might ask questions related to the reading or ask a child to summarize what they had understood from the text.
The next activity is remaking a picture book, and it will require buying a book containing some interesting and easy to memorize pictures. It would be better if a child is well acquainted with the book and is able to recreate the book plot by the pictures. In order to hold this activity, a parent needs to separate pages of the book from its binding and mix the order of the pages. A child then is asked to put the pages in the correct order on the basis of the images on them. Such activity will boost a child’s memory and help them to pay attention not only to the audio or written text but also to the illustrations. In addition, it improves sequencing skills, and a child learns how to build a logical connection between different parts of the text.
Looking at an environmental print is also a useful technique for developing a child’s literacy at home. It might be logos, words, symbols, or signs that a child looks at every day so that he is able to recognize those prints. A parent is required to provide a child with different environmental prints, for example from magazines, or books, and ask them to form a story or a book from those logos. After that, a parent may ask a child to read the text that is constructed from the given prints.
Finally, playing with magnetic letters is old but still, an effective method to contribute to a child’s literacy and language level development. For this activity, a cookie sheet and magnetic letters will be needed. In order to hold this activity, the child is required to be familiar with the names of the letters. Alternatively, a parent needs to teach the alphabet to a child first. After they are more familiar with the names of the letters, parents need to ask their children to put the letters in the correct alphabetic order. Such an activity not only teaches children letters, which will help them to learn how to read in a more comfortable way but at the same time improves their memory and problem-solving skills.
Persistently practicing such activities at home will highly contribute to the children’s literacy and language skills outcome in the future. Most important skills, such as sequencing, memorizing, and pre-reading skills, are acquired by a child while doing the activities mentioned above. Using pictures, magnetic letters, and reading out have a positive influence on the formation of such skills. That is why parents are recommended to take part in forming a child’s language and literacy at home.
Reference
Napoli, A. R., & Purpura, D. J. (2018). The home literacy and numeracy environment in preschool: Cross-domain relations of parent–child practices and child outcomes. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 166, 581-603. Web.