Make a Difference to a Child's Future Now

Our Results Reports show that parents can learn to use step-by-step guidelines to make reading a picture book a fun experience with their child. Sharing specific learning points , like naming face parts on the picture, helping your child point to them as you name them and even point to their own corresponding face parts, can make books come alive.

This parent interaction with books is often something that parents themselves missed in their pre-kindergarten years. Often those parents did not have an easy time of literacy, reading and vocabulary, when they did get in a classroom setting.

The feeling that they were behind other children before they even got to school left them feeling that they did not belong in school; that school was not for them. This sense that non-school activities were more "for them" than school often leads to early drop out, and early divergent entrepreneurship ( illegal ways of making money).

Another popular distraction from parent-child book time together is the current fascination with electronic games, and media. Many homes will not have a book, but will have a radio, a TV, even several electronic games and possibly even a few "track phones", or even highly sophisticated hand -held devices. Time spent on such devices actually takes the parent 's attention away from the real time experiences they could be having with their child. The common answer to those parental preoccupations is to have TV on with child programming to entertain the little ones.

Current research has shown a 4 year old's vocabulary to be fewer words if they spend a lot of daily time viewing screens such as TV or computer screen, and hand held devices. The 4 year old's vocabulary of words they know and understand is considerably larger if the parent spends time talking with their child directly and reading out loud with them. For every hour of screen time the child's vocabulary is smaller; for every hour of conversation and reading aloud together the child's vocabulary is larger.

Children learn best from a real live human being, especially one they know and trust. A child uses all their senses to learn how to live and do things like you, but they need to learn basic life skills first, and build upon them. Many adults do not value all the basic life skills they have and could pass on to their child with simple demonstration.

How do you brush your teeth? Show your child and give them a tooth brush of an appropriate size for their development , and, typically, they will imitate you . Say "Yay" with a big smile on your face every time a child does something you like and your child will tend to repeat the action, and eventually learn to say "Yay" too.
A child has a built-in copy-cat skill to learn survival skills, much like a kitty, puppy, or baby bird. When a parent shows that food tastes good and says "Mmmm", a child tends too wants to eat it too.

If parents simply take the time to clearly demonstrate a desirable behavior, a child tends to learn it, just as he or she hears and sees it done. What they cannot learn is what goes on behind the scenes, or why the moving colors on a screen move a certain way. They cannot directly imitate those movements of the flat screen, so they may be fascinated by the colors and sounds, but cannot correlate them with their daily life.

Only an extreme genius IQ toddler could have the unusually high abstract reasoning to "get it" that the red octagonal shape on Sesame Street or the Electric Company TV show that was associated with some disembodied voice saying "Stop" has anything to do with the object they see every time you stop the car at the corner.

You can make a difference to a child, especially your own child who takes cues from you on everything she or he sees you do. Smiling, touching, loving; eating anything more advanced than just sucking from a bottle; cleanliness such as poo-poo is not a good thing to play with or have around any longer than necessary. These are basic level life skills that you naturally show them.

Talk with your child , naming things around you both such as : cup, sippy, spoon, food, shoe, sock, diaper, shirt, pants. Even concepts can creep into conversation early on, like: okay, soon, food is coming; Time for bed; we are leaving in 5 minutes, get ready; Here's you coat; Let Mommy help. Let's read a book.

Visual Literacy is sharing your names for picture parts with your child. Simple words you know are words a child still needs to learn. Parts of faces and bodies can be learned directly and again in a picture book format. Animals can be seen in a zoo, or as pets in your home ; or in a visit to a farm, and your can read about them in a book as well.

Simply associating your word sounds consistently with a picture in a book, teaches them the value of printed symbols, even before letters and printed words are introduced. This Visual Literacy is an important step that should not be skipped or underestimated in the progress toward school readiness, life readiness ( much like we need to crawl before we walk, and even later run).

Your child needs your help to bridge the gap between the real object world they usually explore, and the flat representations of those objects in books first. Later the magic of electronics can be introduced , only after you, as a real life trusted human being, have shown the value of symbols in books. Printed pictures that you show them with some interest and enthusiasm, brings enough meaning to a child to consider imitating the book experience.
Picture books open the door to print in books that you and teachers can later carefully share.

Sounds are of great interest , especially the sounds a child hears their loved one say. You can make a difference, with a little attention, sharing what you already know with your pre-kindergarten child. As they bring what they have already learned to the classroom experience, they feel more confident and that they belong there and can succeed.

Its like being asked to play a game that they already have played and they know the rules. They are more confident that they can succeed. In this way your child's whole future opens up in a positive way, because you have taken a little time each day to share what you know with them.

Enjoy each moment with you child. They grow very quickly , whether it feels like it or not at the time. Instead of thinking of it as 5 long years before kindergarten, think of it as a very short time you have to pass on what you know, in a way they can easily understand, about the basics of life. Prepare them to feel confident, so they can make the most of their future.