Our Mission Beach Campus received some lovely school readiness guidance from local speech pathologist Claire Hayley (Social skills resources www.socialskillsresources.com.au) that we wanted to share with you.  While the Day One Kindy and school readiness programs do many activities that support your child’s transition to school, these are just a few ideas that families can try out in the lead up to “big school”.

Research has shown that children who understand concepts about print before school entry, are in a better position to learn and have a better chance of literacy success.

Point Out Print

Point out print when reading signs, recipes, food labels, print on clothing, letters, greeting cards. Print is everywhere! All of these tasks involve commenting and talking about print.  The child will learn about words, and sentences and that print carries a message.

Use words to talk about words. Your child will be exposed to lots of words that refer to language: syllables, sentences, letters and sounds. These words are important so start using them was you read.

Track words left to right. Comment on where you begin to read (“I am starting up the top, this is the first line”).

Talk about the parts of the book, front cover of the book, author, illustrator etc.

Comment on punctuation, capitals ( “ When I see this ? , it means it is a question etc.’)

Comment on the size of the print and whether this changes the message ( like “Loud print tells me he is talking loudly” )

Comment on qualities about words, such as “This is a long word, “butterfly”, bug is a short word”.

Notice if short words occur within other words (“This is the little word cat. It is inside the long word caterpillar”).

Label objects in your child’s room using a labeller or sticky notes

You can do this pointing out print while reading to your child but there are many opportunities in everyday life such as:

• cooking and following a recipe
• going out to dinner and ordering from the menu
• doing shopping and following a list
• following signs to get to a new place
• instructions to construct a new toy

For more helpful tips please speak to your child’s educator.

Other useful links

Try the free App for Ipad “SPEAK” with games for language for 0-6 years

Point out Print: www.hanen.org

For board games that promote print, go to turn taking games on social skills resources website and Facebook page www.socialskillsresources.com.au