Now Is the Right Time!
As a parent or someone in a parenting role, you play an essential role in your child’s success. There are intentional ways to grow a healthy parent-child relationship from the start, and supporting your child’s development now in ways that will help them read when they are older is a great way to do it.
Preparing to learn to read begins as early as possible, long before your child can read a word on a page. No matter what age, it is always good to build a habit of reading books together, and there are many other things you can do to develop early reading skills as well.
Reading skills are grown by talking and singing, playing rhyming games together, and reading to your child often to develop their vocabulary and knowledge about the world.
Children are naturally eager to learn and interested in letters and sounds. The early years are the right time for developing language skills, playing with sounds, and enjoying books together so children will be ready for reading in the future.
Throughout the early years, your child turns to you to help them figure out what is important to pay attention to. When you fill your child’s day with talking, singing, rhyming, and reading, they learn that language is essential. Your child is interested in your voice, the words you choose, the rhythms of your speech, the songs you sing, and the books you love.
The steps below include specific, practical strategies to help you have fun with your child while growing their language skills and building a relationship with reliable, unconditional support and love.
Why Reading?
Your one-year-old’s experiences, including singing, rhyming, and playing with you, are essential to developing a healthy brain, growing curiosity skills, learning about language and feelings, and strengthening their relationship with you. These experiences will also help them learn to read when they are older.
You can begin by exposing your child to songs, sounds, and books they can explore – even if that means drooling or chewing on them in the first years! As time passes, they will turn to you for new words and stories and connect language and reading with the joy they feel when having fun with you.
Today, in the short term, building a foundation for reading can create
- language skills that help your child communicate about their needs with you
- fun times with you as you learn new songs and stories together
- a love of learning that will encourage your child to explore and be curious
Tomorrow, in the long term, building a foundation for reading
- prepares your child for success in school
- provides a firm foundation for exploration, learning, and speaking up
- helps them identify thoughts, feelings, and challenges, which grows self-awareness
- helps them manage impulses so they can stay focused on the story, which grows self-management
- helps them become more socially aware as they learn how to take cues from others about how to use language together in games and songs
- helps them grow responsible decision-making skills as they learn good reading habits and learn to ask for help when needed
- creates shared family stories, games, and memories
Five Steps for Talking About Reading
This five-step process helps you and your child develop a foundation for learning to read when they are older. The same process can be used to address other parenting issues as well (learn more about the process)
).
Tip: These steps are done best when you and your child are not tired or in a rush.
Step 1 Getting to Know and Understand Your Child’s Input
One-year-olds may use babbling, single words, and crying to communicate with you. Pay close attention to your child’s facial expressions, movements, and sounds to work on understanding what they are trying to communicate.
Your efforts to learn from your child build trust and create empathetic interactions that let them know that you are interested in what they are thinking. This will make a big difference in setting the stage for early reading. Your child will give you many cues about their readiness to learn. Every child is different, and your child may change daily in how willing they are to sing new songs, have conversations, and listen to new stories.
You are getting to know your child’s cues and learning to anticipate whether reading more stories or any other experience is right for today. Is your child feeling particularly tired? Did they just get hurt, or are they hungry? Knowing how they are doing and what their facial expressions and body language mean will help you decide if an activity is right for your child right now.
In paying attention and noting minor differences in your child’s verbal and nonverbal expressions, you
- show them that they can trust you to notice how they feel
- let them know that you will help them face challenges
- deepen your ability to communicate with one another
Actions
- Language and relationship development set the stage for later reading success. Simple questions and interactions can engage your child. Your child may respond with a few simple words, and they can respond with eye contact, facial expression, and body movements.
- Make sounds together. For example, practice animal sounds together. “What does a cow say? It says Moooo. Can you say Moooo?” “What does a duck say? It says Quack Quack. Can you say Quack Quack?” You could also practice clapping or stomping your feet together.
Tip: If your child seems unengaged when you are singing or reading together, don’t worry. Young children have very short attention spans, and it is ok for them to look away and re-engage later.
One-year-olds are learning how to engage in their world through loving interactions. These interactions include growing skills that will help them learn to read when they are older. Skill building takes intentional practice.
Learning about developmental milestones can help you better understand what your one-year-old is experiencing
- 12-18-month-olds will respond to their name and may use 5 to 10 words. They are starting to combine words with gestures, follow simple directions, and remember recent events and actions. They are also beginning to point to objects of interest.
- 18-24-month-olds can understand ten times more than they can speak, are starting to respond to questions, can point to familiar objects and people in pictures, and are beginning to follow two-step directions. They are also beginning to want to try things on their own.
Teaching is different than just telling. Teaching builds basic skills, grows problem-solving abilities, and prepares your child for success. Teaching also involves modeling and practicing the positive behaviors you want to see to promote skill development.
Actions2
- Read together. Read books together during the day or as part of your bedtime routine. Your child will eventually be able to hold a book, look at the pictures, and likely put it in their mouth. They will look at books upside down and back to front. Encourage this exploration.
- Read or chant rhymes or poetry to your child — particularly ones with repetitive words and sounds.
- Check out storytimes or other activities for children at your local library. These activities help children play with word sounds and develop a love for books and reading.
- Make your thinking and feelings explicit. Talk about what you notice, how you feel, why you feel it, and what signs you are giving. “I have so much fun singing songs with you. La La La La La!”
- Talk aloud about how you respond to your big feelings. “That song makes me laugh. It is fun to clap our hands to the music!”
- Cultivate a love of playing with language and stories. This might include sharing funny poems and making silly faces every time you make a rhyme. Diaper changing time is a perfect time for silly faces and rhymes.
Tip: Don’t expect your child to have a long attention span with any one activity. Follow your child’s lead.
Step 3 Practice to Grow Skills and Develop Habits
Your daily routines are opportunities for your child to practice new vital skills. With practice, your child will improve over time as you give them the chance with support. Practice grows vital new brain connections that strengthen (and eventually form habits) each time your child works hard toward a goal or demonstrates belief in themself.
Practice also provides essential opportunities to grow self-efficacy – a child’s sense that they can do a task successfully. This leads to confidence. It helps them understand that mistakes and failures are part of learning.
Talk, sing, rhyme, read, and play are important ways to build a foundation for reading.
Actions
- Keep books within reach so your child can enjoy them when they choose. Books that let children press buttons to make sounds give them a chance to take some control of their sound-making.
- Use books, songs, rhymes, and games at home that allow children to hear examples of language and sounds around them.
- Read together. When you read stories together, reflect on the story, and you’ll take the learning opportunity one step further. “Do you think Little Red Riding Hood was excited to go to Grandma’s house?” Involve your child in selecting the book, holding it, and turning the pages to build ownership and interest in reading.
- Use your child’s dolls or stuffed animals to act out moments of enjoying language and reading. This is an excellent way to practice what it feels like to be a reader and to build that part of your child’s identity. “Let’s bring Teddy over here so he can hear the story too.”
- Provide opportunities for your child to use language and words in a way that is just a bit more challenging than what they have done before. The goal is to come up with experiences that are just beyond what they are comfortable with. If they have already heard you read a favorite book to them many times, ask them to help you make the sounds together. For example, if you read a book about cows, ask, “What does a cow say? It says Moooo. Can you say Moooo?”
- Practice making music together. Clapping or stomping your feet together is a fun activity to engage your child.
Step 4 Support Your Child’s Development and Success
At this point, you are developing your child’s language skills by playing with sounds and enjoying books together so they will be ready for reading in the future. You allow your child to practice so they can learn and grow.
Now, you can offer continued support and generate excitement and positive feelings about language and reading.
Actions
- Learn about your child’s development. Each new age presents different challenges, and being informed about your child’s developmental milestones promotes empathy and patience.
- Recognize effort by using “I notice…” statements like: “I noticed you were clapping your hands when the music was playing. Hooray!”
- Build reading and songs into your daily routines and comment on how important those parts of your routines are. “I notice you like bedtime stories. Reading books together feels good to me, too.”
No matter how old your child is, your positive reinforcement and encouragement have a significant impact.
If your child is working to grow their skills – even in small ways – it will be worthwhile to recognize it. Your recognition can go a long way in promoting positive behaviors and expanding your child’s confidence. Your recognition also promotes safe, secure, and nurturing relationships — a foundation for strong communication and a healthy relationship with you as they grow.
There are many ways to reinforce your child’s efforts. It is essential to distinguish between three types of reinforcement: recognition, rewards, and bribes. These three distinct parenting behaviors have different impacts on your child’s behavior.
Recognition occurs after you observe the desired behavior in your child. Noticing and naming the specific behavior you want to reinforce is key to promoting more of it. For example, “You were paying attention so well at storytime today—I love seeing that!” Recognition can include nonverbal acknowledgment, such as a smile or hug.
Rewards can be helpful in certain situations by providing a concrete, timely, and positive incentive for doing a good job. A reward is determined beforehand so the child knows what to expect, like “If you listen to the story, we will get a treat when we are done.” (If you XX, then I’ll XX.) It stops any negotiations in the heat of the moment. A reward could be used to teach positive behavior or break a bad habit. The goal should be to help your child progress to a time when the reward will no longer be needed. If used too often, rewards can decrease a child’s internal motivation.
Unlike a reward, bribes aren’t planned ahead of time and generally happen when a parent or someone in a parenting role is in the middle of a crisis (like in the grocery store checkout line and a child is having a tantrum. To avoid disaster, a parent offers to buy a sucker if the child will stop the tantrum). While bribes can be helpful in the short term to manage stressful situations, they will not grow lasting motivation or behavior change and should be avoided.
Trap: It can be easy to resort to bribes when recognition and occasional rewards are underutilized. If parents or those in a parenting role frequently resort to bribes, it is likely time to revisit the
five-step process.
Trap: Think about what behavior a bribe may unintentionally reinforce. For example, offering a sucker if a child stops a tantrum in the grocery store checkout line may teach the child that future tantrums lead to additional treats.
Actions
- Recognize and call out when things are going well. It may seem obvious, but it’s easy not to notice when everything is moving along smoothly. Noticing and naming the behavior provides the necessary reinforcement that you see and value your child’s choice.
- Recognize small steps along the way. Don’t wait for significant accomplishments—like the full bedtime routine going smoothly—to recognize effort. Remember that your recognition can work as a tool to promote more positive behaviors. Find small ways your child is making an effort and let them know you see them.
- Build celebrations into your routine. For example, after getting through your bedtime routine, snuggle and read before bed. Or, in the morning, once ready for school, take a few minutes to listen to music together.
Closing
Engaging in these five steps is an investment that will strengthen your skills as an effective parent or someone in a parenting role on many other issues and develop essential skills that will last a lifetime for your child. Through this tool, children can learn to love reading from the very beginning.
