Sharing Early Literacy Tips

Ah, the dreaded “Early Literacy Tip.” I can feel some of you squirming.

Let’s face it. Some of the early literacy tips in the VRR curriculum are long, awkward, or just too didactic to share with caregivers. Reading them, you may think to yourself, “Reading this tip aloud would make me sound like a robot and definitely alienate my caregivers!”

I want you to know that you are not alone in your apprehension. But I also want you to know that sharing these small tidbits is an important part of storytime. You do a lot just by demonstrating how to read a book, sing songs, and play with kiddos. Maximize that impact by letting caregivers know why what you’re doing is important, and provide them with tools for increasing literacy skills at home. Because we only see a big group of little ones once a week, the reality is that we aren’t spending enough time with each kid to substantially increase their language development and early literacy skills. Modeling best practices, providing ideas for developing literacy at home, and encouraging caregivers is how we make a difference.

Tips for Tips:

1. Make it your own. Don’t be afraid to paraphrase! If you feel awkward sharing a tip, your caregivers will know. Don’t limit yourself to the VRR binders. You can find tips that resonate with you in a number of places. Check out the jbrary discussion for a great list.
2. Make it relevant! An early literacy tip apropos of nothing is a useless literacy tip. Relate it to what you’re reading, singing, or discussing to make it meaningful. It’s as easy as sharing why you chose to do this book, rhyme, song, or activity.
3. Make it a priority. Write your Early Literacy Tips into your program planning, whether that means using the laminated VRR outline, handwriting your list, or typing up your plan. If you don’t plan on saying them, you probably won’t.
4. Make it easier. Practice! As Mel from Mel’s Desk says in her great post on this topic, “If you are confident in WHAT you are saying, you will be more confident in HOW you say it.”

I was trying to come up with a cool acronym for my tips but all I could come up with was REPO and then they were out of order.

An Example

Today my baby storytime theme was numbers and counting. Here are the early literacy tips I chose:

1. Intro (I often tie an early literacy tip into the theme). “Today’s theme is numbers and counting! Numbers are important vocabulary words. But there’s no need to drill them in; through counting things you see, reading number books, and singing number songs, baby will learn them naturally.”

2. I sang through Mem Fox’s Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes. My early literacy tip was: “I learned to sing the book this way from the Houston Grand Opera! Some books are written to be sung along to, like book versions of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star or Row, Row, Row Your Boat. But you can set books to music even if they weren’t written that way! You can use tunes you know or make up your own.”

3. I chose to use the tickle rhyme This is the Beehive because it counts 1-5 bees. Jbrary had a great tip to go along with it on their page for baby storytime:

While this might feel like a long rhyme for an infant we like to tell parents that when they do it at home their child will start to remember the rhyme and look forward to the tickle at the end. This ability to recognize and predict sets them up to be strong readers down the road.”

I adapted this to share with my caregivers:

“We are going to learn a new little tickling rhyme! It might feel long, but if you continue to do it at home, baby will start to remember the rhyme and look forward to the tickle at the end. This ability to recognize and predict will set them up to be strong readers down the road.”

Then one of my babies liked it so much we ended up doing it like 3 times and sort of proving the point. HA! That reminds me. We have one nearly-1 baby who starts grinning the second she hears the start of The Elevator Song. Predictive abilities in action!

Great Stuff on Delivering Early Literacy Messages

• For a must-read, Mel’s Desk. I highly recommend everyone read this post.
• For professional development, Webjunction’s Supercharged Storytimes Webinars. 
• For the scholarly-minded, a research paper.
• For a great discussion, Jbrary - Includes a fantastic list of resources for more tips.

Resources for More Tips:

• VRR Binders
• I was going to continue with this list, but just go check out the jbrary article; no need to reinvent the wheel.

Let’s make it a New Year’s Resolution to get comfy with Early Literacy Tips!