The Forever storybook
Reading on my own by age 6!
Dear mommies and daddies, this book was designed with all my heart and soul as a tool meant to be with you day to day, on the journey of helping your child learn to read, and learn to love reading. Alongside this, the hopes of this book is to also help guide you to fun ways to incorporate learning into your every-day lives. What it is not is a parenting guide. I am not a parent, nor do I believe that were I parent, would any advice I give you be counted as something profound. Parenting is a personal choice and there is no book, or person for that matter, who can tell you you're doing it wrong. This book specifically is nothing more than one linguist's and educator's perspective on how to help your kid read based on the sheer experiences of her learning company. This book is not about me, but if you care to find out more about who I am, please refer to the about the author section. I promise it's only slightly bolstering my qualifications.
Anyway, moving forward, the goal of this book is for you to use and reuse it for years. It is specifically designed to be your go-to, your right-hand-man, mommy's 3rd arm, and daddy's means of bragging about his little angels. It was created for helping you teach your child to read, and enjoy reading for that matter, at an early age. We all know the struggle that is trying to immerse your child into academics and that, at times, it feels hopeless. I've heard the pleas of many parents who come to me to discuss services for their kids. and honestly, I can't tell you that it particularly hastens the nagging want to have kids of my own, but I do know that there have been numerous parents who follow up with me and tell me that their lives changed after minor changes in approaching and presenting education to their kids. I'm there with you in spirit, parentals!
Before we jump right into it, I'd like to take a bit more line space and reading time to explain how this book will work. It will (hopefully) be with you for quite some time, so get to know it and treat it well. The main components of this book will be as follows:
Track 1: The Early Bird gets the A+ in Development:
This track is meant for children ages 2-3. This is right when your bundle of joy gets their first toe wet and takes a first glance at this incredible thing called the alphabet, and other surroundings factors of knowledge and development, such as shapes, numbers, a better sense of time, coordination, and colors! This is prime time to get your child immersed in the world around them and help them develop an interest to explore early on.
So, why 2 to 3? Simple, some kids develop faster than others and you need to understand what your child is and is not ready for. Again, we don't want to promote pushing kids past their realistic abilities. Try as soon as your child turns two. If you see certain things are just not working yet, utilize the story section and suggested supplemental reading material and simply read to your child, as well as follow the sections marked with a (input symbol here.) Continue every few weeks to see if your child is ready to interact with the varying activities in this track. By age three, this track's activities, suggestions, and, for lack of a better term, curriculum, should be right up your child's alley. No reason to add too much pressure, but a healthy push is always encouraged.
I would recommend taking some time a bit in advance to assure that you are ready to start this once the time comes. I will include several ideas on things to have in your child's room, toys, and other materials that you should have handy, as well as how to make every-day items readily available around your house as some awesome educational tools. You don't need to spend a million dollars to get some kickass (am I allowed to say that?) academia in your child's life!
Track 1: The Early Bird gets the A+ in Development
As you may have heard from everyone who insists they know how to raise your child better than you, it's important to immerse your children in the education they are soon to partake in early on. By age 2, your child should be ready to see things like numbers and letters in the various things around them, and your conscious effort to make this happen is quite important. However, a common act I've seen a few too many times is parents imposing academic inclusions on to their child with force and expectation. This is nay cool, peeps. Your job as the parent is to do your best to make sure your child does not develop and aversion to learning. Planting their little tush at a desk and basically forcing them to learn is just not going to cut it. Gone are the days when there is a lack imagination to make this process more enjoyable and if, per chance, you do lack imagination, you always have Google. (Keeping it honest here!) There are so many resources out there for your viewing and usage that I no longer accept the excuse that I hear too often - I just don't know what to do. You do. You've got this. You are a strong person with every ability to raise a kickass (whoops, said it again,) smart and developed kid. I can't promise you that also gone are the days of pulling your hair out trying to get your kids to learn. This is just a part of parenting and frankly the reason that houses with liquor stores in close proximity are probably higher in value, but it definitely does not always need to be as daunting. Maybe, just maybe, if you were to try a different approach, study time would be just as enjoyable for you as your little early bird. There are so many ways to actually make learning and teaching a great part of family time! Read on, peeps. The brief sections within this track are:
- What is early learning?
- Supplementary resources and product recommendations
- Activities to do with your kid, family time
- Five stories (and visuals for each) to read to your kid
- What is early learning?
So what is early learning and education? You can Google it and find a million and one resources which define it in a number of ways, but to put it most simply, and in a way that it relates best to this book, early childhood is a branch of education that pertains specifically to younger children, and specifically those at pre-school-age levels. It covers varying topics that assist in childhood development and academic preparation. For the purpose of this book, early childhood refers to the varying ways in which you can help your child prepare for learning to read and adapt their mind accordingly. Whether you're using this book for your first child or are a seasoned mommy/daddy, there are numerous ways to get your kids excited about learning without even realizing they're doing anything academic. That's the trick, ladies and gents.
According to Healthy Children Organization, run by physicians from the American Academy of Pediatrics, below is a guided list of developmental milestone, broken down by age. I have included milestones from birth to preschool, for reference.
It may seem odd, but physical and social skills are a big component in how your child will grow and continue on to branch into their academic involvement, so starting early is definitely only for your child's benefit, and it's worth all the extra effort! Often times, we have clients at THINK&Co. who have to go through lifestyle changes to accommodate changes of habit and creating a proper environment and structure to help their catch up when behind and kids learn better to advance Starting early not only helps your child get the right start, but also can alleviate the need to flip your life upside down when/if it becomes necessary.
-- have a speech therapist, occupational therapist, and child psychotherapist give a small blurb for this section too! --
- Supplementary reading and toy recommendations
As much as I would love for this book to be all you ever need for your child, that is far from the case. There are incredible companies and products out there, as well as a plethora of phenomenal authors, all of which/whom fill your world with exponential options for supplemental reading and materials to help your child advance and develop as best possible. Below is a list of my favorite books, toys, and other materials/supplies that can be a great help specific to helping your child advance intellectually and developmentally, as it pertains to their education.
-- lists --
Books to read to your child, which will later become books your child an read on their own and reflect upon.
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Toys for early childhood to help with development, sensory, social, communicative, and other skills.
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Other materials, such as mats and wall art to use in your house.
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*** include links, stores, and websites (and locations), and images
Magnetic alphabet letters and alphabet cubes are a great way to start! (add more info and links, resources, etc.) explain further about early immersion and tying in various other factors into it, such as shapes, seasons, etc., to get the child better familiar with this environment. talk about the early childhood program at THINK&Co.) also discuss intro to letters, and how this first section will include several stories for the parents to read TO their child. no need to rush into having your baby read right away. let that tater tot chill out and enjoy the soothing sound of mama's voice for another year or two. you'll miss these moments come first day of middle school when you're no longer the "coolest."
- Activities to do with your kid, family time
When it comes to parental involvement, more is better.
- Five stories (and visuals for each) to read to your kid
Track 2 is intended for kids age 4-5. This is where we get serious! Your little tater tot is now ready to dive in and try some reading on their own. Don't skip the ketchup! <-- that was me trying to be funny, note how the outcome is always corny instead -- you'll see lots of that in the book, but it comes from a good place and well, frankly, you've already bought it so you may as well follow through ;)
this section will include basic linguistic methodologies, explanation of phonetics, the rules, and symbols, etc. also talk about how this section has stories for you to read TOGETHER with your child, and get them familiar with some basic sight words prior to reading.
Track 3 is intended for children ages 6-7. By this point, your tater tot is a full on meal, ketchup, mustard, and even melted cheese! They're ready for the big kid approach and expectation - reading on their own! this section has stories for kids to read, symbolize, and respond to on their own.
In between various pages, there should be pages dedicated to little notes of encouragement to parents, ideas for games and activities, with things to do at local museums, parks, etc., and prompts to have parents ask for advice on some sort of public forum, tagging me and the book! #whoneedsabusinessdegree?!
**** thought here, there should be a second book for kids age 7-10!!! where we include how to incorporate parts of speech, comprehension, writing, etc.
notes:
have our kids write notes of encouragement to other kids and include that in the book, have illustrations from our kids in the book, etc.