Square One: A Division of the Virginia Business Coalition on Health.
Early Care/Education
Brain Building With Books
- Oral language is the beginning of literacy. Speak clearly and Talk! Talk! Talk!
- Create a safe and comfortable print-rich environment.
Use multi-sensory experiences (smell, taste, touch, hearing, & sight)
- Cuddle up with a child and a book. Attachment and responsive care reduces the amount of cortisol, a stress hormone to the brain. Increased levels of cortisol interfere with a child's learning.
- Use dramatic play and create prop boxes to act out the characters in a story.
- Read aloud! Use your finger to show left to right reading.
- Repetition/Rhyme – Read it and Say it again and again!
Children learn from repetition and are able to predict what will happen next.
- Take a picture walk and point out the illustrations and talk about what you see.
This helps the child understand the printed word.
- Ask open-ended questions, “What are you building with the blocks?”
- Compare and Contrast. “Is the elephant bigger than the mouse?” “Are they the same color?”
- After you read, ask the child what happened at the beginning, middle and end.
Introduce the parts of the book (title and author).
