| Preschoolers: (ages 4 - 5 years)
Developmental characteristics:
- Seeks attention and approval from adults.
- Enjoys helping with simple household tasks.
- Enjoys playing house and/or imitation other children and adults.
- Enjoys hearing stories about self.
Advice:
- Snuggle with your child with her favorite blanket or toys as you read.
- Emphasize rhythms and rhymes in stories. Give your preschooler
opportunities to repeat rhyming phrases.
- Encourage the child to react to and comment on the story.
- Elaborate on the text to help the child understand the language and
critical story components
- Ask the child to make predictions.
- Be careful not to disrupt the flow of the story. It is often best to
read the story through once with few interruptions to keep the meaning
intact and then have a discussion during the second reading.
- Look for books that are about things that interest your preschooler. For
example, does your child like cars, insects or animals?
- Help the child make connections between events in the story and their
own lives; or make connections with another book read previously.
- Tell the child a "me" story, about a child like them who has a fanciful adventure. Weave their name and the details of their life into the story.
- Give your child a chance to choose his own books for reading. If your
child chooses a book that is too long to hold his attention, read some pages and
skip some, discussing the pictures and how they relate to the story.
- Set a good example as a reader — read every day at home even if it is a
magazine or newspaper.
Themes
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