School readiness is an exciting time for parents, children, and educators alike. As Speech Pathologists, a fundamental area of school readiness that we often notice is overlooked, is the development of early or pre-literacy skills!
What is Literacy?
Literacy is defined as the ability to read, write and spell.
Did you know, while there are some innate skills children naturally develop through the course of growth and development, the skills needed to read, write and spell is not something we are born with, and need to be explicitly taught – Just like riding a bike!
How I help my child be ‘School Ready’ when it comes to supporting their Pre Literacy Skills?
Establish regular reading routines
Every child deserves to grow up with fond memories of reading together with their family. Reading shouldn’t feel like a ‘chore’ for you or your child! Find some quiet time during the day, or before bedtime to look through and read aloud a range of favourite and new picture books with your child.
If your child has difficulty holding attention for long periods of time, you could start with a few minutes of book reading a day, and gradually build this up with additional support from your child’s speech pathologist or occupational therapist.
Schedule in a weekly visit to your local library, so your child can explore a range of new books they wish to read and borrow to take home. Extra bonus if your library offers ‘Storytime’ where they can interact with other young children to engage in shared book reading time.
Help your child identify different parts of a book
It is important to approach book reading with a sense of playfulness and curiosity. Book reading shows your child:
How they should hold a book
Identify the front cover of the book
Identify written letters (differentiating between capital vs lowercase letters)
Identify numbers
Identifying what a word ‘looks like’
Encourage your child to be your special detective or ‘helper’ to locate the following core aspects of a book to increase their general familiarity with engaging with books.
If your child is observed to have difficulty with identifying different book components, it is important that you frequently MODEL THIS FOR THEM and provide praise for trying their best to learn about the different parts of book reading.
Help your child develop phonemic awareness skills
Phonemic awareness is one of the most critical skills for your child to begin to develop before they start school. Phonemic awareness is where you or your child appropriately match written LETTERS with the SOUNDS that they make. For example, Although the word ‘cat’ starts with the letter ‘c’ it makes the /k/ or ‘kuh’ sound. Without phonemic awareness, children can have difficulty accurately pulling apart sounds in words and blending them together to help them read. So how can I help my child develop their phonemic awareness skills?
When you say or point to a familiar word, ask your child to listen out for the first, middle and last sounds in the word. For example, “Look! It’s a DOG. What is the last sound you hear in ‘dog’?” They should respond with the /g/ sound. If they do not respond with the correct sound, you can model and link the sound with a visual analogy (e.g. “The /g/ sound is our ‘gorilla sound’ - ‘guh’ guh’ ‘guh’. The word ‘dog’ ends in the /g/ sound”).
Help your child develop their prewriting strokes
Prewriting strokes are the movements and shapes needed to form letters, numbers and picture drawings. Our skilled Occupational Therapy team have posted about the importance and expected development of prewriting strokes on our Bambini Blog, here.
Speech Pathologists work in close collaboration with our Occupational Therapy colleagues, to not only support children to develop the skills to develop their auditory sound-letter knowledge, but to strengthen their visual and motor skills to learn to write their name, age and things that are meaningful and important to them and their learning as they progress through school.
Want to get a head start? Check out our Bambini School Readiness Pack with loads of fun motor-learning activities so they can pick up a pencil, crayon and paintbrush with confidence!
Build your child’s visual and auditory comprehension and skills
Although it is not expected that your child can read before they start school, shared book reading is a fantastic opportunity to observe if your child is understanding what they are seeing, and what you are reading to them.
While reading to your child, it is recommended that you occasionally ask them a range of WH- questions such as:
WHO is this?
WHAT is [object] called?
WHAT is the [character] DOING?
WHERE is [the event/object]?
HOW did/does [character name] feel?
WHY do you think [describe event] happened?
After the story, you can also encourage your child to retell the main events of the story to you, or someone else. For example, “Tell mum/dad/your brother what happened in our story”.
If your child is having difficulty with answering questions about a story, using or understanding appropriate vocabulary, or struggling to retell the story sequentially and accurately, we strongly recommend that you seek support from a speech pathologist for further assessment and guidance.
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Want to learn more about how to better support your child’s literacy skills? Give us a call on 0450 501 023, or email hello@bambinihealth.com.au to book in with one of our knowledgeable and passionate speech pathologists today.