Parents have two basic questions: “How is my child doing as a reader and a writer?” and “What can I do to help?” It’s a challenge to answer these questions and explain literacy development in content-packed back-to-school nights or during a thirty-minute parent–teacher conference. Supporting Your Child’s Literacy Learning can help. This booklet provides parents with a visual way to chart their child’s path as a reader and writer and includes suggestions for literacy activities families can do at home.
With Supporting Your Child’s Literacy Learning, internationally known literacy researcher Bonnie Campbell Hill offers an effective resource to hand out during back-to-school nights, conferences, or whenever parents want help understanding how their young readers and writers are progressing. It can help improve family–teacher communication and bolster parent support for your school’s literacy program.
Written clearly and without jargon, this parent guide documents the ten stages of literacy learning from the first random markings of a preschooler to the in-depth reflections of a middle school student. On the right-hand pages are examples of student writing and tips for families about ways to support writing at home for each development stage. On each left-hand page the characteristics and types of texts students can typically read at each stage are included, along with helpful suggestions for reading at home. Tucked in the back are bookmarks with developmentally appropriate questions for each stage of literacy that families can ask children as they read together.
Supporting Your Child’s Literacy Learning is a helpful resource that gives parents the tools to be better informed, describes the path that students take to literacy, and shows what level of literacy their son or daughter has reached. It’s an ideal way to open a new, more effective way of communication with parents than you’ve ever had before.
