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Early Literacy

Build literacy skills in children ages 0-5; Vol. 2, Issue 1

Early Literacy Build literacy skills in children ages 0-5; Vol. 2, Issue 1
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Read Aloud to Children

Reading aloud is one of the most important things parents and teachers can do with children. Reading aloud builds many important foundational skills, introduces vocabulary, provides a model of fluent, expressive reading, and helps children recognize what reading for pleasure is all about.
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Read Aloud Tips: Birth to Third Grade

To read aloud with a child, all you need is a comfy place and a good book. Visit Reading Rockets for read-aloud tips by age. Some books are more appropriate based on social and emotional development at each stage of a young child's life.

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Pictures are worth a thousand words

When you read aloud to a children, encourage them to appreciate pictures, but also guide their attention to printed words. This may help improve their reading, spelling, and comprehension skills down the road.

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Read Aloud Stories Online

Storyline Online has an online read-aloud library of some amazing books read by actors and other famous public figures. Each book plays a video story as the reader goes through each page.
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Understanding what you read

Reading with comprehension means to understand what you've read. It takes practice, time, and patience to develop reading comprehension skills. Here is a before-during-after approach that families can use to help children learn to read for understanding.
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Picture This! Using Mental Imagery While Reading

One way to help children comprehend what they read is to encourage them to visualize parts of the story in their mind. These "mind movies" help clarify information, increase understanding, and can include any of the five senses.

Talk while you read

The best story times are very interactive. You talk about and read the story, your child talks to you about the story, and conversation takes place between the two of you. This is what educators call dialogic reading.


You can use the PEER method to help you remember a few ways to talk while you read:


  • P: Prompt your child with a question about the story. Prompting your child focuses attention, engages the child in the story, and helps the child understand the book. Point to something in the picture, for example, a balloon. "What is that?"
  • E: Evaluate your child's response. "That's right! That's a balloon."
  • E: Expand on what your child said. "That's a big, red balloon! We saw one of those in the grocery store yesterday."
  • R: Repeat or revisit the prompt you started with, encouraging your child to use the new information you've provided. "Can you say big, red balloon?" Each time the book is reread, the expanded vocabulary words are verbalized again.

Family Reading Tip

Read early and read often. The early years are critical to develop a lifelong love of reading. It's never too early to begin reading to a child. Here are some fun ways you can help a child become a happy and confident reader.

COMMUNITY PARTNER SPOTLIGHT

Each month we highlight community partners who work to improve literacy in Bulloch County.

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Ferst Readers of Bulloch County

Ferst Readers' mission is to strengthen communities by providing quality books and literacy resources for children and their families to use at home during the earliest stages of development.


Free books for 5-year-olds and younger:

Ferst Readers of Bulloch County partners with Bulloch County Schools to supply free books and literacy materials to families. Parents or adults may sign up any child who is five-years-old or younger. Multiple children within a household may participate. This service helps do the following:

  • encourage reading
  • improve literacy in preschool children
  • increase a child’s access to books at home, and
  • encourage families to read together

How You Can Help Ferst Readers

To learn more, visit www.ferstreaders.org or contact Bulloch County Schools about its literacy fundraisers and initiatives at 912.212.8570.

Read 1,000 Books with your child before Kindergarten

1,000 Books Before Kindergarten

The Statesboro Regional Library has a special program for pre-school children and their families. The 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten program is free for children ages birth to five-years-old. Visit or call the library today to learn more, register, and pick up a starter pack. You can also register online

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GET GEORGIA READING IN THE COMMUNITY

Communities across the state are working hard to ensure children are on track to achieve third-grade reading proficiency, and you are invited to join this effort.

Get Georgia Reading
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Get Georgia Reading

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The Early Literacy newsletter is a service of the Bulloch County Literacy Council. It is an online resource tool for parents, educators, volunteers, family members, and those who work in childcare to help them build literacy skills in preschool children from birth through age five. It is published and distributed by Bulloch County Schools on behalf of the community partners who serve on the Bulloch County Literacy Council.