LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
These ideas offer ways to build your child’s literacy skills, preparing her for success in school and beyond.
Reading
Babies:
- Provide your child picture books with simple objects or faces.
- Give him board or cloth books with pages that turn easily and won’t tear.
- Offer him books with soft, rough, or bumpy textures to touch and feel.
Toddlers and Preschoolers:
- Have your child point to numbers, colors, letters, and familiar objects.
- Choose books and topics of interest like animals or trains — and big events like toilet training or the birth of a new sibling.
Talking and Listening
Babies:
- Talk to your child about what you see and what you are doing.
- Listen as she communicates with coos, smiles, laughs, and cries.
Toddlers and Preschoolers: - Have conversations where each of you has a chance to talk and to listen.
- Play hide-and-seek, talking about what you are seeing as you look. Your child will listen closely as she waits to be found.
Singing
Babies:
- Play music and watch as your child bounces and babbles to the beat.
- Sing favorite songs over and over again.
Toddlers and Preschoolers:
- Teach your child songs that have hand movements.
- Teach him simple sing-along songs like “Ring Around the Rosie.”
Writing
Babies:
- Encourage your child to hold soft toys or rattles, which help develop grasping skills.
- Play with puzzles that have oversized numbers and letters.
Toddlers and Preschoolers:
- Let your child play with and trace magnetic letters and numbers.
- Allow her to draw freely and creatively.
