• Strong readers develop better language skills and better language skills help kids to become better readers.
  • Reading together is a win-win situation for you and your child!
  • While you are reading together, it’s easy to begin to introduce your child to some of the concepts of print. These are skills she’ll need when she begins to read on her own, so allowing her to see how books “work” from an early age can only help her later!
  • Before you begin to read, discuss the parts of the book with your child and name each one: “This is the back of our book, this is the front of the book. Here’s the spine of the book. Here’s the title –that’s the name of the story. And here are the names of the author, who wrote the words, and the illustrator, who drew the pictures.”
  • When you’re reading, use your finger to follow beneath the words you’re reading.(This allows your child to see that words run from the top of the page to the bottom, and from left to right).
  • From time to time, point out specific words that are interesting or that go with a picture. Say and/or sign the word together and look at how it looks on the page.
  • You can even talk about what letter a word starts or ends with, to help begin to make your child aware that sounds and letters are related.

Tip #20: The Bottom Line:
Read together often!!!!!!Talk about the story andtalk about the parts of the book, itself!