The importance of early literacy . . .

Parents-- early literacy for your child begins with you. You can help your child be ready to read, even before Kindergarten! You are so important in helping your child get ready to read because:

• You know your child best!
• Children learn best when they are in a good mood, and you know your child's moods best.
• You can help your child learn reading skills in ways that are easiest for him/her.
• Children learn best by doing things-- and your child loves doing things with you! Take every chance you have to read with your child, tell and talk about stories, say nursery rhymes and sing songs.

There are six pre-reading skills your child can start learning from birth!

1. Narrative Skills: Being able to describe things and events and tell stories.
2. Print Motivation: Being interested in and enjoying books.
3. Vocabulary: Knowing the names of things.
4. Phonological Awareness: Being able to hear and play with the smaller sounds in words.
5. Letter Knowledge: Knowing letters are different from each other, knowing their names and sounds and recognizing letters everywhere.
6. Print Awareness: Noticing print, knowing how to handle a book and knowing how to follow the words on a page.

According to research, these are the primary pre-reading skills that children must learn in order to learn to read. Activities you do to support each of these skills will change as your child grows.

We want to help! Visit the information desk at our library and request a parent's guide to early literacy for your child aged birth to five-years. Don't forget to ask us to direct you to books you can read with your child and to tell you about library programs you and your child can enjoy together.

Check 'em out . . .

New book recommendations for September

In contemplating this 5th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks, readers may appreciate Jay McInery’s novel, The Good Life (2006), in which the events of 9/11 are sensitively portrayed as an impetus to the questions: "what happens, or should happen, when life stops us in our tracks, or our own choices do? What if both secrets, and secret needs, long guarded steadfastly, are finally revealed? What is the good life?"

If you enjoy reading unique cultural studies, travel memoirs, or histories, you will surely delight in Tom DeMott’s Into the Hearts of the Amazons: In Search of Modern Matriarchy (2006). DeMott provides a rare, insightful look at a remote corner of southern Mexico where the Zapotec culture thrives primarily under the control of women. Check out this fascinating new book just in time for Mexico’s Independence Day, celebrated from 11:00pm Sept. 15th and continuing through the 16th.

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