Tips For Parents:

Phonological Knowledge: 

-Allow you child to have access to some type of alphabet set. Ex: Alphabet blocks, magnetic letters, etc.
– Surround your child in literacy rich environments
-Match speech sounds to print

Semantic Knowledge: 

-Point out road signs, or store signs and begin to associate letters with sounds

Syntactic Knowledge:

-Consonantly engage your child by talking to them at mealtime, in the car, at the playground, etc.
-Encourage them to answer you in longer sentences, not just one or two words.
-Establish communication loops (take turns talking and listening

Morphemic Knowledge: 

-When using tense, explain why you used the word that way.
-Encourage your child to use the tense you just demonstrated

Pragmatic Knowledge:

-Teach them the right and wrong ways of speaking
-Allow children to make jokes
-Expose them to different situations where you may speak differently Ex: to a cashier, to a teacher, etc.

Books & Activities:

Green Eggs and Ham: This classic is a great read for preschoolers. The rhyming is great for this age group and allows the child to begin to help read a long because of the predictability.

Activity: Talk about other words that rhyme with green eggs and ham. See how many they can name. Use food coloring to create green eggs and ham for breakfast. Expose them to things you use in the kitchen to make breakfast and label these objects: Pan, oven, fork etc.

Are you My Mother?: This books takes children along the adventure as a dog tries to find his mother. It includes a lot of animals, some that may be familiar and others that may be new.

Activity: Talk about the animals, what noises do they make? Talk about what characteristics makes this animal its name. Then talk about other animals that may have 4 legs and be furry, they aren’t always going to be a dog, it could be a cat.

The Snowy Day: This book shares a story of a little boy who experiences snow for the first time. It is great for toddlers as it allows them to vicariously experience snow if they havent already

Activity: Ask your child what the little boy might be thinking when he first sees the snow? What letter does snow start with? Use adjective to describe some of the things the boy is seeing. Ask them to use those adjectives  to explain something else they already know about. This expands the schema.