Children's Development in Early Reading and Writing

What preschoolers can do:

*enjoy listening to and discussing storybooks
*understand that print has meaning
*attempt to read and write
*identify signs and labels from the environment
*produces rhymes
*identify some letters and make some letter-sound matches
*use known letters or approximations or letters to represent written language, especially one's own name and meaningful phrases like "I love you"

What parents and family members can do:

*talk to children, have conversations
*give names of things
*show interest in what the child says
*read and reread stories with predictable text (any story becomes predictable when read over and over!)
*ask children to recount experiences
*have children describe ideas and events important to them, recalling with detail and order
*visit the library
*provide writing and drawing materials and time to use them!