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Read Every Day
Perhaps the single most important thing you can do at this stage to foster your child’s reading and writing skills is to read to him every single day. A recent OECD study comparing the role of parents in education in several countries found that the factor that best predicts better reading performance when a child is 15 is whether they were read to during their early years. So read as often as you can to your child, even if just for 20 minutes a day, and do your best to make reading time a fun experience that both of you enjoy.
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Develop Your Child's Curiosity for Books
Before you actually start to read a new book to your child, read just the title and look at the picture on the cover or first page. Ask her, "What do you think this book will be about?" “Tell me what you know about...?” These questions will help your child develop curiosity about books.
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Read Non-Fiction Books
Make sure to include non-fiction books in the titles you choose. Kindergarteners are fascinated by the world around them and learn a lot about how it works from non-fiction books. They especially love books about animals (including dinosaurs, of course!), outer space, and trucks and machines.
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Develop Good Reading Habits
Reading skills will always be essential to your child's academic success, so do everything you can to make sure that they develop good reading habits. It's especially important that your child sees you and other adults enjoying reading. This will help them view reading in a positive light.
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Sing Songs to Your Child
Reading to your child isn't the only way to insure that they become a strong reader as they get older. Singing songs together and familiarizing them with a range of lyrics will also help develop language skills.
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Kindergarten English Language Arts Skills
In kindergarten, children learn the letters of the alphabet and their sounds. They discover that sounds and letters can be combined to make words, words can be put together to make sentences and that sentences can be written down for us to read.
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Play Word Games
Play simple word games like I Spy With My Little Eye, seeking out things that begin with a certain letter. In the car, play games with road signs or license plates, such as having your kindergartener spot words or plates that begin with a specific letter.
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Act Out a Storyline
Have your child "act out" the storylines of a book you're reading. This helps your child learn new vocabulary words and better understand plot and character development.
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Play Vocabulary Word Games
Make a game out of broadening your child's vocabulary. Choose five unfamiliar new words for your child to learn each week and see how often everyone in the family can use those words in everyday conversation. This will help improve your kindergartener's vocabulary, reading comprehension, and speaking skills.
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Encourage Writing and Drawing
As a parent, you can do so much to help your kindergartener feel like a writer. Encourage drawing, scribbling, and writing. Successful and fluent writers are confident in their abilities and writing every day, in whatever form, will help your child gain that confidence.
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Explore Different Uses for Writing
Make sure that your child sees how you use writing in different ways for different tasks, purposes, and audiences. Provide a running commentary as you write, explaining what you're writing, to whom, and why. Explain why you're making sure to use more formal language and capital letters in a thank you note to your mother, compared to the conversational tone of a note to your spouse about groceries.
