There are some very basic ingredients for growing healthy young children-they need loving, nurturing families, wholesome food to eat, time to rest and recharge their batteries and plentiful opportunities to stretch, wiggle, run and safely explore their worlds. But, did you know that reading and other language-building activities are equally important to young children's development?

During the early years, children's brains, as well as bodies, grow at a fast-paced rate. From birth through the early elementary years, children develop many of the basic skills needed to read, write and speak. These are skills they will need to succeed once they enter primary school (kindergarten, first and second grade) and throughout their lives. Research shows that one of the most significant predictors of future school success is whether parents and caretakers read to their young children. Unfortunately, with dinner to make and dance class looming, reading books together is sometimes a forgotten activity-the televised version of Angelina Ballerina often wins out over the picture books that inspired it.

Read all about it: Ways to incorporate reading at home
Despite the importance of reading for healthy development, many parents are uncertain how to introduce books to their children. According to Patricia Myers, executive director of the New York State Association for the Education of Young Children (NYSAEYC), it's really very simple.

"With all of the information out there about the importance of reading, lots of parents have the mistaken impression that their job is to teach their young children to read," says Myers. "Really, their job is simply to introduce books and help their children become familiar and comfortable with them."

Myers says that the time for formal teaching can wait. With young children the most important thing that parents can do is to create an atmosphere at home that supports learning and exploration of language.

Here are some simple ways to have meaningful reading experiences with your young children:

• Introduce books to your baby from birth. Though they are too young to grasp a story line, babies learn a lot about the comfort of reading through the closeness of your body and the soothing, rhythmic sound of your voice as you read aloud. Since most babies prefer to use books as teething toys, make sure the ones you choose are made from sturdy, safe (no small parts or sharp corners), non-toxic cardboard or cloth. Appropriate books for the very young are those that include colorful, easy-to-understand pictures. Babies are fascinated by books with faces and photographs of children like themselves involved in day-to-day activities.
  
• Help children understand that reading is fun. How you read to young children is as important as what you read. If you rush through or drone along, children will likely lose interest. Choose a time to read together when everyone is relaxed. Try reading with expression, use different voices for the characters or put yourself and your children into the story.
  
• Tap into children's interests. If your child loves construction vehicles, choose books that include lots of colorful pictures of diggers and haulers and a text that allows for some expressive reading and sound effects ("The back hoe BEEPS as it backs up. The excavator digs down DEEP to scoop the earth.") At the library or bookstore, let your children help decide which books to bring home. Though they may not all be ones you would choose, allowing your children freedom to pick what interests them (or merely catches their eyes), can further spark excitement about books and reading.
  
• Look for those that include beautiful, colorful illustrations and inspired story lines. These are truly more enriching than those that offer nothing more than an indirect advertisement for trendy characters. For some suggestions of wonderful books for young children, check out the New York Public Library's list of 100 Picture Books Everyone Should Know at http://kids.nypl.org/reading/recommended2.cfm?ListID=61
  
• Make reading a regular part of each day. If it works well for your family, bedtime can be a great time to wind down with a book or two. Mealtimes can also be prime reading times.
  
• Today Is Monday by Eric Carle and The Seven Silly Eaters by Mary Ann Hoberman are some fun books about food. Read to your little ones as they splash in the tub. Some bathtime books to try include The Tub People by Pam Conrad and Splish, Splash! by Sarah Weeks.
  
• Set aside a special place for your children's books. A bottom bookshelf or basket placed on the floor are great places to store books from the family collection and those from the library so that children can easily reach them.
  
• Take your children to library story hours. Even if they aren't able to sit through an entire program, young children will learn a lot about books and reading as they wander through the stacks, play with puzzles and talk with the friendly children's librarian.
  
• Pack a bag of books and keep it in your car. If you have to wait at the doctor's office or have some spare time before a lesson, read together from your pre-packed stash of books.
  
• Record your children's favorite stories on cassette tapes to play in the car when you aren't able to read them yourself. Popular children's books with tapes of pre-recorded readings are readily available at the local library. A recorded reading made by an out-of-town grandparent or other family member given with a copy of the book makes a great birthday or holiday gift.

The write stuff
Writing is another important language skill that begins to develop during the early years. Though their first attempts at writing may be difficult to distinguish - squiggles, dashes and loopy o's are all first attempts at writing - as children's writing develops, it will contain more conventional letters and spacing.

Just like reading, learning to write is a natural, long-term process. Here are some ways to encourage young children as they try their hands at writing during the early years:

• Offer lots of materials for writing. Some obvious choices include an assortment of paper and note pads plus crayons, chunky pencils and washable markers. Gather these materials together and store them where children can have ready access to them. That low shelf or basket that contains their books is one possibility. Since their gross and fine motor skills are still developing, young children are sometimes more comfortable writing on large surfaces like chalkboards and oversized pads of paper. Little fingers can have greater success grasping sidewalk chalk or painting with broad brushes filled with paint than they might have with pencils or even crayons. Another great way to develop writing skills is to build children's finger muscles through play with scissors or Playdough.
  
• Get a feel for letters. Use sticks to form letters in the dirt, shape them from bread dough, practice writing them on cookie trays covered with cornmeal or pudding - edible writing materials are a great incentive!
  
• Suggest opportunities to practice writing. Children can write and illustrate a book about themselves. Blank books are easily made by folding a few sheets of paper down the middle or binding a packet of papers along the long side with yarn or O-rings. Before heading out to the store, encourage children to write or draw pictures of items to look for as you shop.
  
• Encourage all of their efforts. Throughout the preschool years, children use a combination of scribbling, drawing, individual letters and/or strings of letters to represent letters and words. All of this is writing in its most basic form. Children are usually very proud of their early attempts at writing. Your enthusiastic response to whatever they offer can encourage them to keep trying to hone their skills.

For permission to reprint this article, please contact the Capital Region BOCES Communications Service at (518) 786-3263 or email us at dbushsuf@gw.neric.org.

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