Winter is a great time to practice your child’s early literacy skills!
According to the Every Child Ready to Read® initiative, there are 5 activities parents and caregivers can explore with their children to develop their early literacy skills: reading, writing, singing, playing, and talking.
Here are some ideas for special ways to celebrate winter while building their literacy skills:
- Read picture books with winter or holiday themes
- Make a family favorite recipe (let the kids help you measure to practice math skills!)
- Listen to family audiobooks or podcasts in the car when traveling
- Point out names on gift tags
- Bake cookies in the shape of letters to practice spelling and letter recognition
- Write thank you notes
- Draw letters in the snow with sticks
- Use lacing toys, make snowballs, cut paper with kid-safe scissors, or string beads/pasta, to develop fine motor skills needed to learn to write
- Do puzzles, build with blocks, or play board games as a family
- Share holiday cards with your children and talk about the people who sent them.
- Look at family photo albums and talk about your memories of previous winter seasons
- Sing your family’s favorite seasonal songs
®Every Child Ready to Read @ Your Library is a joint project between The Public Library Association (PLA) and Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), both divisions of the American Library Association.
Guest Blog Author: Anne Clark is the Children’s Coordinator for the Bay County Library System and the mom of two young children.