The Lanark Leeds Grenville District Health Unit wants you to spend more time reading to your children. “Emergent literacy skills” are skills that babies, toddlers, and preschoolers need to learn so that they are ready for reading and writing when they start school. These skills include vocabulary, book-handling skills, story-telling skills, scribbling and drawing, recognizing print and understanding what it is for, and singing and rhyming.
Reading aloud to children is the single most important activity for laying the foundation for literacy and learning. But rhymes, poems, songs, crayons, clay, painting, menus, and signs can play a role as well. The key is for you to share these activities with your child and talk about them. Read and talk to your child. You will be setting your child up for success at school and in life.