By Leah Nevills, Children’s Library Associate, Central Library
Here at the Tulsa City-County libraries, we focus on 5 Build-A-Reader early literacy skills that we try to practice in our Storytimes. These skills are talk, sing, read, write, and play. This post will highlight the literacy skill: TALK. Developing this skill isn’t just something you can do at the library; you and your child can work on TALKing to build early literacy at home. And I’m here to tell you how!
As you go about your day, stop for a moment and listen to the sounds around you. Ask your children what they hear. Talk about what you hear. Try to imitate the sounds. A perfect place to try this is in the car. Roll down the windows on a nice day as you’re driving through a slower area and ask your child what they hear outside. You could also stop and listen to the sounds around you as you’re on a walk at the park or through your neighborhood. Even little activities like this one can help your children develop phonological awareness, which is the ability to hear and play with the smaller sounds in words.
Another great way to build phonological awareness while talking to your child is through reading books that make noise, or books that have sounds you can read aloud as part of the story. Not only does this make for a silly and engaging at-home Storytime, your child is also learning how to break down words, sometimes even words that they’ve never read before! This builds their confidence as they’re learning how to read.
Below are a few books that make noise available for checkout or as a hold on our catalog site, accessible at the library and on your personal devices. So check one out and have a great time with your little one, discovering new sounds and building early literacy skills at home.
Everybody in the Red Brick Building by Oge Mora
Sounds Like Joy by Yesenia Moises
Honk Honk, Beep Beep, Putter Putt! by Rukhsana Khan
My City Speaks by Darren Labeuf
