Read to Kids Early and Often

It is never too early to start reading to your kids. Oconee County Schools Assistant Superintendent of Instruction Lisa Simmons encourages parents and caregivers to read to their children as early and often as possible. “Its not even just reading words, but understanding the front and back cover of the book, directionality of reading, the purpose of an author and illustrator and what their jobs are and just having a good concept of print in general before you even start with letter identification and sound identification; all of those pre-reading skills are really important. Sometimes people forget about those and unless you are in education, you don’t understand the priority of what you want to learn when you are becoming a reader, but those developmental skills are key when you are just introducing a book to a child.” Establish a reading time with your child everyday and after you are done reading, discuss the book with them, to help learning begin.