The best time for children to start learning to read and write is when they are very young. This is when they begin to develop positive attitudes and basic skills. Reading to children and talking to them about their ideas (even if those ideas don’t make sense to you right away) helps children reach a deeper level of understanding. If you and your child are more comfortable in a language other than English, please use it! Reading and talking to your child in the language of your home is very beneficial.

When children are first learning to read and write, it is important to talk about the ideas they are reading about. This will help build their comprehension skills. In this stage, your child: • Begins to match written words to spoken words and to see relationships between sounds and letters • Begins to experiment with reading and says words out loud when reading • Finds pictures on the page or screen helpful in understanding the meaning of words • Begins to experiment with writing – for example, writes symbols that resemble letters, writes groups of random letters and then eventually writes real words • Asks questions about what he or she would like to learn (encourage this interest!)