The Cooley's: Emergent Reading!

Okay....stop rolling your eyes! I promise I'm not sitting home drilling my child every day. I just provide the opportunity, with a little encouragement, and let Casen do with it what he may.

While at MSU, I had an awesome Early Childhood teacher who introduced me to emergent reading. She talked about how she had everything in her house labeled in English and Spanish and how this helped her little girl put the word with the item. I must say this has been a fun, little adventure with Casen. I labeled the trash can, refrigerator, drawers, cabinets, freezer, door, dishwasher, pantry, and oven in English (I might get around to labeling in Spanish some day, but for now English is good!) when Casen was taking his morning nap a couple weeks ago. As soon as he came into the kitchen after waking up, he noticed the labels. He ran from label to label touching each one, and every time he touched one, I would tell him what the label said. As time has gone on, he will run to a word, point to it, and say "Name."

Now every time he does this, Brett or I will tell him what the label says, and believe me he does this, it seems like 100 times a day! Anyway, I have started asking him to show me where the pantry is or the refrigerator, etc. and many times he will run to the correct one. I don't think it will be long before he is able to get them all right. He is so curious and his wheels are turning all of the time so I'm trying to provide opportunities for him to make those connections that will benefit him throughout his life (educator talk).......The first 5 years of your child's life are the most important for introducing them to new things and opportunities to help make tons and tons of connections in the brain!