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 fingerplays, crafts, and other activities.

This issue features the literacy skill known as letter knowledge. Letter knowledge is knowing that letters are different from each other, that the same letter can look different, and that each letter has a name and is related to specific sounds.

Alphabet books are one way to help children become aware of letters and how they look. Here are some  recommended titles.

A chubby little snowman had a carrot nose.

(Form snowman with a right fist, thumb for nose)

Along came a bunny and what do you suppose?

(Hold 2 middle fingers of left hand for bunny ears)

That hungry little bunny looking for some lunch

(Bunny hops)

Ate that snowman's nose.

(Bunny grabs nose)

Nibble, nibble, crunch!

Mr. Turkey went out one day

(Start with hand behind back)

In the bright and sunny weather.

He met Mr. Duck along the way.

(Bring other hand out front)

They stopped to talk together.

(Hands are beaks)

"Gobble, gobble, gobble"

"Quack, quack, quack"

"Goodbye", "Goodbye"

And then they both went back.

(Hands disappear behind back)

Reserve this book