November is National Family Literacy Month. Studies show that reading aloud with a parent or caregiver is the most important activity when it comes to preparing children to read on their own. Reading helps with vocabulary, writing skills, attention span, memory, and teaches children about other cultures. Even if your child is a baby or toddler, you should still sit down and read with them. A child at any age can look at pictures and listen to your voice as you read stories.
Here are some quick, easy tips to encourage family literacy at home:
• Create a special reading place in your home, with your child’s favorite books within reach
• Read together as a family
• Ask kids open-ended questions about the book as you read together to keep them engaged. For example, “What do you think will happen next?”
• Use wordless picture books & take turns making up a story to go along with the illustrations
• Keep teens reading. Give them books, newspaper articles and magazines about things that interest them – music, movies, TV and computers
• Pick one night a week to make a regular visit to the library
More tips to encourage family literacy can be found on readingrockets.org, raisingreaders.org, readingbrightstart.org. and readaloud.org
Taking a trip to the Library is a great way to celebrate National Family Literacy month. Providing families with the tools to emphasize the importance of reading together is one of the goals of the Attleboro Public Library.
One of the many tools families can find at the APL are the Early Literacy Kits. These kits give families hands-on strategies for building literacy at home, reinforce the fact that parents are their child’s first and most important teacher, and build text-rich environments at home by providing take-home books and other parent resources for families.
Another tool that families can pick up at the Attleboro Public Library are Book Bundles. Book Bundles are 4 or 5 books, both fiction & nonfiction, all on the same topic. Right now our Book Bundle topics are Feelings, Dogs, Trains, Dinosaurs & Bedtime, but the topics will change on a regular basis.
