Easy Ways to Promote Literacy at Home or on the Road

• Encourage creative play – props and dress-up
• Rhyming games
  Tip: Use your child’s name to rhyme with. If it’s not an easy rhyme, use the name somewhere in the rhyme. Example: There once was a girl named Erin / She sometimes got to staring / But once she stared so long / She started to sing a song.
  Tip: Don’t be afraid of nonsense rhymes. Sometimes kids
  This promotes phonemic awareness
• Make up a line from a story (older kids)
  Boredom buster for car: Each child says one line from a story, the next child adds a line. Story is finished after X number of minutes or arrival.
• When children are learning to read, label everything in your house (stove, door). Hide an object or a word on one of the familiar household items and see if they can name it.
• Sing familiar songs together (link to Nancy Stewart). Change a familiar word in the song and see if you can change the song together.
  Example: Sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star together / Then change to Twinkle, Twinkle Little Bat.
• Read a book together. Note: younger children might not be able to sit through an entire reading. That’s okay! Instead, describe what’s happening on the page, pointing to objects as you name them. Start at the front of the book, but let children flip back and forth.
  Further tip: Before children can read, have child “read” to you. Point out where the words are and where the pictures are.
• Trace a child’s body on a large piece of paper. Label the different parts of the body
• Have children create their own mini-books (link to/provide example of how to create mini-book from one sheet of paper). Even if child can’t write well yet, let them draw pictures and tell you the story.
• Ask your child about what they are reading or want to read next often (3-4 times a week). (Older children). Ask:
  What do you like about the book?
  What character do you identify with? Like? Dislike? Which character would you like to be? Why?
  What do you think will happen next?
• Play what-if game (older children) (find book recommendations for all of these)
  What if humans could live on outer space? Where would you go?
  Jon Sciescka
  If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?
  What would you do if you won the lottery?
  What is your dream house like?
  You meet a genie who grants you three wishes. What would they be?
  If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
  Savvy and Scumble
  What would you do if you found out your best friend was an alien?
  If you could invent anything, what would you invent?
• When child is learning to read, have them read aloud to you
• Read aloud to your child as often as you can. Try audiobooks if you don’t have time to read aloud. (You can find audiobooks at the library, or at thrift stores)
• Encourage children to read a half hour before bed
• While traveling anywhere, point out the name of new and unfamiliar objects
• Play word memory (write words on index cards, making 2 copies of every word, and then play memory when children are learning to read)
• Magic bag of words
• Story scramble
  Create a story using familiar characters pulled out of a bag (Clifford, Curious George, Disney princesses, the president, historical figures, animals)