Reading to your Child to Optimize Literacy Learning

Why Reading Books is So Helpful.   

Young children love repetition! Prepare to read their favorite books over, and over, and over again. Though you may find this boring, The child’s brain is finding something new and learning with each repetition. Think of all the things a child’s brain is tasked with learning at this age, each repetition helps them through organization, categorizing, pattern matching, attaching words with objects, etc., etc., ect… Even though you may feel it’s a bit of a snooze fest, let your child choose the book and drive the number and frequency of repetitions as soon as they are able. 

Case Study with Good Night Moon

Good Night Moon by Margaret Wise Brown is the most popular bedtime children’s bedtime story of all time. The story is deceptively simple and parents may not realize that it is designed to link abstract words with the child’s everyday experience. Children often love hearing the story at bedtime, night after night. They don’t know they are learning that words have different beginning and end sounds (rhyming; mittens and kittens) or consciously consider that words are symbolic representations of things they already know: objects (moon, cow, etc), object characteristics (green, red), object spatial relations (over, on), or object actions actions (jumping, whispering). They just know that it’s familiar and find the repetition soothing.  

The illustrations in the book follow the text on each page so parents can help children make the association between the word ‘cow’ or ‘moon’ with the picture of the cow or moon, or the cow jumping over moon, the red balloon and the bears sitting on the chair. Repetition within the story and reading it frequently before bedtime work together to unconsciously teach the brain to link words to experience. No formal teaching lecture/degree required!

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

In the great green room 

There was a telephone 

And a red balloon 

And a picture of—

The cow jumping over the moon 

And there were three little bears sitting on chairs 

And two little kittens 

And a pair of mittens

And a little toy house 

And a young mouse 

And a comb and a brush and a bowl full of mush 

And a quiet old lady who was whispering “hush” 

Goodnight room 

Goodnight moon 

Goodnight cow jumping over the moon 

Goodnight light

And the red balloon 

Goodnight bears 

Goodnight chairs 

Goodnight kittens 

And goodnight mittens

Goodnight clocks 

And goodnight socks

Goodnight little house 

And goodnight mouse 

Goodnight comb 

And goodnight brush 

Goodnight nobody 

Goodnight mush 

And goodnight to the old lady whispering “hush” 

Goodnight stars 

Goodnight air 

Good night noises everywhere

Finally, its worth a reminder that this practical example of how parents can help children acquire preliteracy skills such as rhyming and sight words relies on the importance the parent places on the practice and the enjoyment it has for the child. This is why parents make such good teachers of these types of skills.