Apraxia-Kids Parent Conference
Break Out Session

Early Literacy Development

Kendra Hammer, M. Ed.
Jill Langue, M.A., CCC-SLP






  • Teach the skill of listening, by doing it yourself
  • Read 20 minutes a day to your child
  • Rhyming is critical
  • Change words around in known songs, i.e. Row Row Row your Boat, could be Propel Propel Propel your craft
  • Phoneme development, children need to be able to identify sounds
  • "b" and "at" together make "bat", take away "b" and you have "at"
  • Play rhyming games, test to see if the child gets the concept, rhyme incorrectly and see if they notice
  • Play games that involve writing. Play restaurant, have menus, have child take order and pretend to write down what you want (ask for target sound items), have child prepare and return with what you ordered, tell you what it is.
  • Practice story telling with your child, Retelling a story you have told them or they have heard, Recounting something they have done.
  • If you use TV, make it meaningful, Read/View/Do
  • Read a book and let the child help finish with words they know
  • Help kids make connections between something in a book and real life. "This reminds me of the time weâ"
  • If you use computer learning, make it creative/imaginative, problem solving based. Not skill and drill.
  • Make books together and save them in a "library". Revisit and read the books you have created.
  • Phonemic Awareness. Skills needed for first grade. See Slides blue tab.
  • Phonemic awareness and alphabet recognition are the best predictors for early reading success
  • Promote Verbal Dialogue through play
  • Keep discussion about your child's development to a minimum in their presence
  • Make books together on big sheet of paper, have child cut out pages, reorganize, and then have child sequence them back together. Staple and bind book. SAVE IT. Put a cover on it, a title, and "by child" line.
  • Barrier Games. Have duplicate set of items, beads for stringing, colored blocks, different shaped blocks. Give child same set of stuff you have, place a barrier between you. Tell the child what you are building, I am placing the green block on top of the blue block, I put the red block on top of that. Child must do same. Then remove barrier. Do they match? Now it is child's turn to tell you what to build.
  • "Take me out of the Bathtub" another book of rhymes.
  • Sights and Sounds. Make a chart of items, beans, cotton ball, paper clips, marbles. Then have containers with these items in them. Child shakes container and tries to guess what is inside the container.
  • Hop to syllables. Say "get up and go" should be four hops - want to teach child to recognize the structure of the words. Recommended Dr Seuss ABC for this.
  • Have a letter of the day. Try and find things throughout the day that start with that letter.