Reach Out and Read, a fabulous early literacy organization, has created a list of early literacy milestones. It ranges from 6 months to 5 years. It has everything from motor and cognitive skills, to what parents can be doing, to what types of books should be read. Here is the PDF:
To find out more, you can visit Reach Out and Read here.
Early Literacy Counts: Room to Grow posted 10 benefits to reading to your baby.
Here’s a small preview:
- It is a bonding experience between the adult and the child.
- A baby’s brain is still developing; reading significantly stimulates this brain development.
- Infants learn to listen to and comprehend language.
- Reading exposes children to new vocabulary and concepts.
For the last 6 check out the post here:
http://earlyliteracycounts.blogspot.com/2010/07/ten-benefits-of-reading-to-baby.html
Here’s a great New York Times article about the benefits of playing with food and more:
The article follows a study done by Developmental Science exploring how babies learn to identify objects.
“But the experiment brings up a number of interesting questions about how children learn, about the role of play and exploration. And maybe even about table manners.”
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/23/to-smoosh-peas-is-to-learn/?_r=0
Tiny free libraries are popping up all over the world. They go by different names from little free libraries, to pop up libraries, to micro libraries, and are put up by various people and groups. They are actually quite simple to build and register with www.littlefreelibrary.org. In fact, I am building one right now with a group of friends.
These libraries are helping to promote literacy, especially in urban settings. While the “take a book, leave a book” philosophy is not necessarily new, this library phenomenon to have taken off.
These are some of my favorite tiny libraries, gathered from a World Literature Today article (which can be found here):
A micro library in Argentina. Raul Lemesoff made it out of a 1979 Ford Falcon, which used to belong to the Argentine armed forces.
One of many phone booth libraries popping up around the UK.
IKEA set up 30 of their bookcases on an Australian Beach. Swimmers could take a book, leave a book, or leave a donation that was given to the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation.
Here’s the article: http://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2012/july/10-unusual-micro-libraries#.UsisWhwhDog
Here are some unbelievable statistics, showing the importance of early literacy:
“Children from low–income families hear as many as 30 million fewer words than their more affluent peers before the age of 4.”
-Dr Dipesh Navsaria.
“One-third of children enter school unprepared to learn. Most (88%) will never catch up.”
-Dr Dipesh Navsaria.
“The research shows that a child who is read to every day at age 3 has a vocabulary at age 5 that is 1.92 months more advanced than a child who has exactly the same observable characteristics (including income group), but who is not read to every day at age 3.”
-The British Millennium Cohort Study Pediatrics, February 2010.
“More affluent family circumstances are clearly associated with better parenting behaviours. At age 3, 78% of the richest children were read to daily and 91% had regular bedtimes, much higher than the corresponding numbers for the lowest income group.”
-The British Millennium Cohort Study Pediatrics, February 2010.
“By 6 months of age, children whose parents read aloud frequently outperformed children whose parents read rarely”
-The British Millennium Cohort Study Pediatrics, February 2010.
Dr. Navasaria’s website is here. The statistics come from this presentation.
Literacy Notes 