I’m Ready!™ How to Prepare Your Child for Reading Success

Studies have shown that children who start school with higher levels of early literacy skills have greater academic success. As the most important teachers in a young child’s life, parents play a critical role in promoting these skills before their child gets to school.

It’s easier than you think

There’s nothing really complicated about promoting your child’s early literacy. It requires no special tools or specific activities. All it requires is you, interacting and having fun with your child during everyday routines and activities. The truth is that children learn best not by being “taught”, but by having enjoyable conversations with the most important people in their lives – their parents.

But how you interact with your child during these everyday moments can make a very big difference in how much your child learns. By making small but important changes to the way you communicate with your child, you can maximize his or her chances to develop the key early literacy skills that lay the foundation for learning to read and write.

The five building blocks of literacy

Based on the most current research in early literacy development, I’m Ready! shows parents the most effective ways to nurture their child’s early literacy during everyday routines and activities. The guidebook offers highly practical, easy-to-use interaction strategies for promoting the following five building blocks of literacy, proven to predict academic success:

• Conversation – A child’s ability to use and understand speech is directly related to her literacy development. The better her conversational skills now, the easier it will be for her to understand what she reads later on.
• Vocabulary – The more words a child knows, the easier it is for her to learn new words and to gain meaning from the stories she reads.
• Story comprehension – Experience listening to and understanding stories will eventually make it easier for a child to read and write stories on her own.
• Print knowledge – Before a child can read and write, she must understand how print works. For example, she’ll need to know that print is made up of letters of the alphabet, that letters combine to make words and that print is read from left to right.
• Sound awareness – To be prepared to read, children must understand that words can be broken down into syllables and smaller sounds, and that letters correspond to certain sounds.

How I’m Ready! helps

To make building early literacy skills as easy as possible for busy parents, I’m Ready! offers:

• Straightforward and easy-to-read descriptions of practical strategies, using memorable acronyms and clear charts and checklists.
• Dozens of concrete examples for what to say and do, and how to respond to the child in ways that foster learning.
• Full colour photos of real parents using I’m Ready! strategies with their child
• Try-It-Out sections at the end of each chapter to guide parents in planning what they’ll do and reflecting on the child’s progress.
• A list of Suggested Children’s Books for choosing the best books for promoting each literacy skill.

Who should use this guidebook?

• Parents or caregivers of typically developing children between the ages of 3-5
• Parents or caregivers of children with mild language delays who are developmentally at a 3-5 year old level
• Family support professionals who are looking for practical, research-based tools to engage parents in their child’s learning
• Speech-language pathologists and other professionals looking to promote early literacy as a critical part of a young child’s development