Ready 4 Learning

Have you ever thought about what your parents did to help your literacy growth and development?

This question was put to us by Nada Jerkovic, the manager of Family Literacy for CanLearn Centre/The Calgary Learning Centre in the Calgary Herald this week, leading up to the newspaper's recent Raise a Reader Day.

Right away, I assumed the answer to be about daily reading by parents to children in the preschool years. Questions like this always remind me that in the place and time of my own childhood, children's books were not readily available. I have no memories of bedtime stories as part of my daily routine. So how did they help my literacy growth and development?

Nada doesn't pin the answer on books and being read to. She says:
   
     The strongest "root" of literacy is planted when children have many opportunities to develop their oral  
     language skills. . . The most important thing that makes a difference to children's literacy development and
     later success at school is the amount of ordinary daily talk with children.

When Nada speaks about ordinary daily talk, she means the way we talk with our children about what is happening as we do the ordinary things that we do every day. She means the way we talk about what we are doing, where we are going, what we are seeing and hearing, as we get ready for the day, do errands, do housework, and spend leisure time together - from the very beginning, even before our children can respond. Talking helps our children to learn the language and how to use it.

I wonder how much of this ordinary talk is happening between young children and their parents these days. Could it be that the lure of those luminous screens - TVs, tablets, smartphones, etc. and the ease of staying connected socially may one day be judged as negatively impacting the literacy development of this generation's youngest members?


Click here to read Nada's article:
http://www.calgaryherald.com/literacy/raiseareader/Building+reading+skills+with+families+growth/5463128/story.html