Fun Online Literacy Sites to Add to Daily Home Read

First and foremost Literacy For Tykes recommends reading with your child at home during a quiet time for 20 minutes each day. Beyond that regular reading together time that is so nurturing to your early child as a person and a future reader, there are a few thoughtful services that can be fun ways to promote your child's interest in literacy. These will probably be most effective for 4-year-olds, or a precocious three year old that wants to do everything fun.
This first one is especially fun if you like doing Santa-oriented activities with your child before Christmas. This site http://www.MyElfHelp.com is one you can go to and see if you want to interact with it. You will see Santa Notes that are new daily that you can read with your child, and you can become a member for a onetime fee of $9.95 to have full use of the site. This includes a Letter-to-Santa writing program that you can use with your little one. When you become a member, you can select from a list of 20 or so Children's Charities to receive a donation. Our Literacy For Tykes is one of those charities recognized by that site. You have fun reading and writing with your preschooler, or even elementary-school-age child, and other needy children benefit as well.
Another site that gives an added dimension to reading fun online is probably good for 4 yrs and up. It is www.StorylineOnline.net . Screen Actors Guild members such as James Earl Jones, Melissa Gilbert, Robert Guillaume, Caitlin Wachs, and Pamela Reed each read a specific children's book online. I would recommend listening to the story with your child and responding to the story to give your child cues as to meaning.
Your personal input and interaction with your child to help them understand, interpret, and enjoy these experiences are still the key to their benefit. Your enthusiasm is what your child looks for as whether or not this means anything to them.
Also I would again state that these online activities are only meant to compliment years of home reading with you. Your child needs a strong base of experience directly with you, exploring characteristics of picture books together for 20 minutes a day, before he or she will be ready to comprehend language and picture/print symbolism. You are their first interpreter . You are their most important person. They learn from you. In the online experience they learn with you.