5 Key Literacy Activities to Improve Literacy at Home
by Talia Kovacs
1. Make literacy hands-on: use reading and writing outside of just book-reading. Encourage your child to write a how-to-make-slime booklet that the family then practices, or a family recipe book. By making literacy hands-on, we take away the mystique of reading and involve it into our daily lives seamlessly.
2. Involve physicality: One of the most important ways to ensure your child is reading is through phonemic awareness (the ability to manipulate sounds). When you work to improve sound manipulation, involve physicality to keep it playful and fun. Around the dinner table, play with taking away the first sound of a word and replacing it with another sound. Then act it out. For example, "What happens if I replace the first sound in cat with 'b'"? And your child can mimic hitting a baseball bat.
3. Let your child choose what they read: Anything your child is interested in, regardless of level, is great for them. Comic books are books! By allowing your child to read anything they're interested in, you are ensuring that they see reading as a fun and engaging activity that they'll want to do more independently.
4. Literacy scavenger hunt: For younger kids, let them find everything that begins with a certain sound. For older kids, let them find everything that goes with a specific theme of a book (peaches, clouds, ladybugs for James and the Giant Peach). Literacy scavenger hunts are great because there's no advanced prep work for the parent! Your child can run around and bring you anything they find.
5. Family Storytime: In addition to reading books together as a family, include storytime about your own family. By telling your child the stories of your family overcoming hardship, sticking to their values, and having fun together, you ensure your child is learning the structure of a story while feeling a deep sense of community and belonging to your larger family circle.
Talia Kovacs is a literacy expert and coach working to promote resilience and independence through literacy. Through her practice, Talia offers parenting groups, one-on-one literacy services, and literacy pods all focused on joyful literacy.