Untitled Document

Issue 15

What is Early Literacy? Early Literacy is what children know about reading and writing before they can actually read and write. Research shows that children get ready to read years before they start school. There are six early literacy skills that parents can incorporate into their children's daily life. These six skills are: Vocabulary, Print Motivation, Print Awareness, Narrative Skills, Phonological Awareness, and Letter Knowledge. More detailed information about these six skills is available at http://multcolib.org/birthtosix/elitskills.html/

You can help your baby, toddler and preschooler learn important skills now so they can become good readers. There are many simple and fun ways to do this. We invite you to bring your child to Library storytimes, which utilize research-based techniques to build early literacy skills. This newsletter will help you extend storytime benefits by including book-related activites, fingerplays and crafts.

Print Awareness Picture Books

Noticing print, knowing how to handle a book, and understanding how to follow the written words on a page are all aspects of print awareness. Books with different sized or expressive text, word bubbles or signs and words as part of the illustrations draw a child's eye to the written word. The following stories are perfect for developing print awareness.

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Feature book and Literacy Tip

one moon two cats
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Enjoy the Story, Find the Letter

Read a favorite book with your child. Then decide on one letter to look for on each page and read it again. The book One Moon, Two cats by Laura Godwin is perfect for this literacy game. In this delightful story of a city cat and a country cat, your child will find the letter C on every page. With rhyming text and descriptive vocabulary, One Moon, Two Cats incorporates several other literacy skills as well.

Feature Book and Art Project

The picture book My Garden by Kevin Henkes pays tribute to a child's imagination and features an inquisitive and humorous text. After helping her mother weed, water, and chase the rabbits from their garden, a young girl imagines her dream garden complete with jellybean bushes, chocolate rabbits and flowers that change colors.

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After reading My Garden, your child can make his or her own whimsical garden using tissue paper and crayons. The beautiful pastel illustrations in My Garden will provide you with many creative ideas.

garden art

Counting Book for Toddlers

one little blueberry
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One Little Blueberry by Tammi Salzano

One little blueberry can cause a lot of trouble! Two ants, three ladybugs, four caterpillars and more hungry bugs all want it for themselves. Who will get the tasty snack? Learning to count from one to ten is a treat with this lively read-aloud. Toddlers will delight in finding the lamenated blueberry spot on every page. Sturdy cardstock pages make this book just right for little hands.

Rhymes For Babies and Toddlers

Let's go riding in an elevator.
Hold child in front of you on lap
First floor
At "first floor" start to lift child up
Second floor
Rising up a little at each floor
Third floor
Fourth floor
Fifth floor
By "fifth floor" child should be high
Down!
Bring child quickly back to lap.

Bumble Bee, bumble bee
Move your index finger in circles and "fly" toward your child
Straight from the farm
Bumble bee, bumble bee
Repeat finger movement
Flies under your arm
Tickle the child under the arm while making a bee sound.

Board Books for Babies and Toddlers

Books for Babies Gift Bags

The Library offers a special bag, containing new children's cardboard books and a parenting book, for parents of newborns. These Books for Babies bags are for babies from birth to six months old and for Lake Oswego residents only. Funding for Books for Babies is provided by the Friends of the Library. Parents can request a bag at the Library check out desk. For information, please call 503-675-2538.