BEGIN WITH BOOKS / Parent Reading Tips

Unlike learning to talk, children need to be taught  to write.  It's not enough to see you writing for your child to learn all they need to know.  They not only need to be taught how to write, but also need to understand when and why  we write, and all the many forms that writing takes.  How do printed words "work"?  What are the "rules" or concepts of print ?  It will take your child several years to learn all of this, and of course, they will continue the learning well into the elementary school years and beyond.  However, there are many things you can do to help them get a head-start and be ready for kindergarten. WHY Your child needs to understand that writing is a way of saying on paper the things we otherwise think to ourselves or say out loud.  Letters on a page mean the same thing as words they have heard spoken.  As we rely more and more on our smartphones and tablets for simple writing tasks, we are no longer modelling writin...

The Imagination Library and BEGIN WITH BOOKS encourage parents to read aloud 15 minutes every day. These 15 minutes could be one of the greatest gifts you give your child. Reading aloud promotes language development and builds the skills needed to learn to read and arrive in kindergarten ready to learn.  But that’s not all.  By establishing a regular reading habit, you are also building your child’s emotional resilience and giving them the gift of self-regulation. What do we mean by self-regulation? Self-regulation is the ability to manage our emotions and deal with life’s challenges in healthy and predictable ways.  We develop self-regulation skills through the build ing   of the neura l pathways that make up our stress-response system.  Children who grow up in stable households, with loving and attentive caregivers, have an easier time regulating their emotions.  This, in turn, makes it easier for them to make new friends and get along with others in s...