Thoughts for the Week:

Helping children become ready for reading means more than just teaching children the names of sounds of the letters in our alphabet. Learning about language and sounds begins long before kindergarten - when we talk and sing with children, when we tell them the word names for things around us, when we read books to them. Helping children want to learn to read comes from seeing that reading helps us in our everyday lives.

Children have their own unique ways of relating to books, reading, stories, and words. When we let them know that we love them for who they are, and when we appreciate it when they take small steps along the way to reading, we're building a sturdy foundation for a child who will go off to kindergarten wanting to learn ... about reading and about anything else in this world.