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Read. Sing. Rhyme. Build from Birth.
Cuddling and being loving with a child encourages good self-image. The simple act of playing builds connections in a child’s rapidly developing brain. Research shows sharing books — along with singing, rhyming, drawing and storytelling — promotes language skills as well as motor development, memory, attention span and a child’s social and emotional development.
Start now. Take a few moments to explore our site. Even better, do it with a child. It will help you build something great.
Read together.
A child is hungry for words, pictures and the sound of a loving voice. Reading to a child fills all of these needs, nourishing the mind for a lifetime. It’s never too soon to begin. Hold up a book to your baby and talk about the pictures. Point to words as you read them. Use different voices. Make sound effects. Let your fingers dance across the page. Then do it every day. Let the reading go on and on.
Reading Facts
• When an adult reads to a child, the repetition of words helps a toddler to remember new ideas.
• Reading to children stimulates their emotional and cognitive growth.
• A toddler’s vocabulary grows at an astonishing pace, with new words added daily.
• Even reading books with only one word per page improves a child’s language development.
A story
The Mischievous Dog
Based on a fable by Aesop
There was once a mischievous dog that would sneak up and nip at everyone’s heels. His master hung a bell around the dog’s neck so everyone would hear the rascal coming. The dog was very proud of his bell and went jingling and jangling all over town, with his head held high. One day an old hound said to him, “Why are you so proud of yourself?” The dog answered, “Don’t you see my bell? It’s my reward for being such a good dog!“
Sing a song
A song is a gift to a child’s mind. Music makes connections, builds language and forges bonds between parent and child. At just a few months of age, a baby will smile at a melody and move to a rhythm. Any kind of music will do, “Mary Had A Little Lamb” or Mozart. Better yet, put your child’s name in a song. Then clap, bounce and dance. Sing.
Singing Facts
• Practicing nursery rhymes and songs will help children learn to read more easily.
• Young children learn more about reasoning from musical training than from computer instruction.
• Music instruction has been shown to boost brain function in preschoolers and improve performance in school, especially in mathematics.
• Singing songs is important to helping children develop their language skills.
Take time to rhyme
A child delights in rhyme. The repetition and rhythm of rhyming words are the building blocks of reading. Through rhyme, a child begins to understand how language works, how expression is used in the voice and the subtle differences between word sounds. So sing a restful lullaby. Read aloud from Dr. Seuss. Tell a tale from Old Mother Goose. See how easy it is to rhyme?
Rhyming Facts:
• Small children are aware of rhyme before they learn to read or spell.
• Rhyming helps children learn about letter sequences, an important skill in reading.
• Preschoolers exposed to frequent rhyming show increased skills in recognizing
the differences and similarities between words.
• The more children are exposed to rhyming, the better they will understand how to read.
A rhyme
Hey Diddle, Diddle
Hey, diddle, diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.
Play today
The most natural sight in human experience is a child at play. Play encourages a child to make his or her own discoveries about the world. It helps a child create an identity separate from the parents. Play can take countless forms: a game of peekaboo, a baby pulling socks from the laundry basket, a toddler stacking blocks. When there’s play, there’s wonderful activity happening in the brain. So play.
Playing Facts
• Children play better by themselves after first enjoying an adult’s undivided attention.
• Play encourages independence, self-confidence and creativity.
• For infants, play can be as simple as interacting with another person.
• Children start life with an instinct to explore and discover — and the best toys are often the most simple.
A game
Five little monkeys game — how to play
1. Hold up your fingers to match the number of monkeys.
2. Pretend your fingers are monkeys and bounce them up and down on your other hand.
3. When a monkey falls off, hold up one finger.
4. When a monkey bumps his head, hold your head with both hands.
5. When Mama calls the doctor, hold an imaginary phone to your ear.
6. Shake your index finger. (“No more monkeys jumping on the bed!”)
Repeat until you get to one little monkey!
The song
Five little monkeys
jumping on the bed,
One fell off and
bumped his head,
Mama called the doctor
and the doctor said,
“No more monkeys
jumping on the bed!”
Four little monkeys,
etc, etc.
Draw to discover.
Drawing is a creative language of the developing mind. Before children have many words, they want to draw and express feelings. They want to describe the world they are newly discovering. Drawing is fundamental and natural. Put a crayon and paper in front of a child and soon you’ll see remarkable colors, lines and shapes. Drawing motivates writing and reading. It stimulates thinking. To live is to create.
Drawing Facts
• Children’s drawings are an enriching step toward written expression.
• A young child’s drawings serve as the foundation for a lifetime of writing.
• Children often learn to draw by watching others do the same.
• Young children’s drawings portray a visual expression of their experiences and understanding.
Tell stories and teach.
Stories help a child make sense of the world. When you tell a story to a child, you pass on the shared values and beliefs of our culture, lessons that a child cannot learn on his or her own. And the more stories you tell, the more you teach. Stories introduce the words, ideas and thinking skills that a child will use later in reading and writing. Storytelling starts a process that begins in wonder and ends in wisdom.
Story Facts
• Telling stories to small children improves their listening skills, vocabulary development and the ability to organize their thoughts.
• Active participation in storytelling increases the fluency of verbal expression
in young children.
• Storytelling is linked to an increase in imaginative play and creativity in children.
• Storytelling is a key building block of a child’s intellectual development.
The Story of the Three Little Pigs
Once upon a time there were three little pigs, one day, the time came for them to leave their mommy and daddy and make their way in the world.
Before they left, their mother told them “Remember, the way to get along in the world is always to do things as well as you can.”
The three little pigs realized they would need a home of their own before winter. They each decided to build a home for himself.
The first little pig built his house out of straw because it was the easiest thing to do.
The second little pig built his house out of sticks. This was a little bit stronger than a straw house.
The third little pig built his house out of bricks, the strongest of all.
One night the big bad wolf, who dearly loved to eat plump little pigs, came along and saw the first little pig happily living in his house of straw. He knocked on the door and said “Little pig, little pig, let me in!”
But the pig answered, “Not by the hair of my chiny-chin-chin!”
And the wolf replied, “Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in.”
So he huffed, and he puffed, and he blew that house down — and the little pig scrambled out of the straw and ran as fast as he could to his brother’s house.
The next day, the wolf came to the house of sticks.
He said “Little pig, little pig, let me in!”
“Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin,” said the little pigs.
“Then I’ll puff, and I’ll huff, and I’ll blow your house down."
“Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin.”
So he huffed, and he puffed, and he puffed and he huffed, and at last he blew the house of sticks down, and the two little pigs scrambled out of the straw and ran as fast as they could to their brother’s house.
The wolf then came to the house of bricks.
"Little pig, little pig, let me in," cried the wolf.
"Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin," said the pigs.
Well, the wolf huffed and puffed, but he could not blow down that brick house.
But the wolf was a tricky old wolf and he scrambled up on the roof to climb down the chimney. The third little pig was smart, too, and lit a roaring fire in the fireplace and placed on it a large pot of water.
When the wolf came down the chimney, KERSPLASH! He fell right into that pot of water and that was the end of the trouble with the big bad wolf.
The next day the little pigs invited their mother over for dinner. She said, “You see, it is just as I told you. The way to get along in the world is to do things as well as you can.” Fortunately for the little pigs, they learned that lesson well.
And the little pigs lived happily ever after!
Love. Smile. Hug.
A child craves the loving touch and affection of a parent. It’s always the right time to smile at your child, hold hands and hug when they’re happy or sad. Through touch, children learn about the world around them. They learn how to share affection themselves. The loving closeness and attention of a parent gives a child security and confidence. So tickle those toes. Snuggle on the couch. Simply love.
Love Facts
• Children who feel loved will respond better to parental guidance in all areas of their lives.
• Being warm and loving to a baby encourages a child’s self-image.
• Love and affection from a parent or caregiver encourages brain development
in young children.
• The expressions of a loving caregiver will help shape a child’s relationships as an adult.
Show love anytime.
• Hold hands with your child.
• Cuddle together in a soft chair.
• Smile, smile, smile.
• Give hugs for no reason.
• Hug some more.
• Tickle toes with a game of "This little piggy."
• Play “Patty Cake.”
• Gently massage baby’s arms, legs and feet.
• Pet a soft bunny together.
Talk, talk, talk.
Humans love to talk, to interact, to listen. Talk to your baby from the moment he or she is born. The ongoing stream of sights, sounds, voices and words makes a child’s brain take shape. Point to objects and name them. Use the words you speak yourself. Every new moment creates a chance to use words. The more you talk, the more connections a child builds in the mind — and with the world. Talk, talk, talk.
Talking Facts
• Children exposed to complex sentences will develop better language-comprehension skills.
• Infants learn to recognize the sounds of their native language by the age of
six months.
• The number of words an infant hears directly from a parent or other person is one of the most important predictors of later intelligence.
• Children spoken to in a positive tone of voice will respond more positively than a child spoken to in negative tones.
Resources
SING: Sylvia Rimm, Ph.D., director of the Family Achievement Clinic at the Cleveland Clinic and author of Raising Preschoolers; Gordon Shaw, Ph.D., Frances Rouscher, Ph.D., University of California, Irvine, and Barbara Willer, Ph.D., deputy executive director of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) in Washington, D.C.
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READ: Susan Bookheimer, Ph.D., professor of neuropsychology at UCLA; Linda Baker, researcher, University of Maryland, Baltimore County; and Susan Neuman, Ph.D., professor of early language and reading at Temple University.
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RHYME: Usha Goswami, author of Phonological Skills and Learning to Read, and Peter E. Bryant, Fellow of Wolfson College, Watts Professor of Psychology, Oxford University, author of Developmental Psychology.
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TELL STORIES: J.A. Watson and D.T. Allison, authors of The Significance of Adult Storybook Reading Styles on the Development of Young Children’s Emergent Reading, Journal of Reading, 1994; Robert D. Friedberg, Ph.D., author of Storytelling and Cognitive Therapy with Children, Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy; R. Isbell and S. Raines, authors of Stories: Children’s Literature in Early Education; and Sook-Yi Kim, author of The Effects of Storytelling and Pretend Play on Cognitive Processes, Short-term and Long-term narrative Recall, Child Study Journal.
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TALK: Janellan Huttenlocher, Ph.D., head of the developmental psychology program at the University of Chicago; Dr. Patricia Kuhl, neuroscientist, University of Washington in Seattle; Lise Eliot, Ph.D., author of What’s Going On In There? How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life; and Dr. Betty Hart, professor emeritus of human development at the University of Kansas.
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LOVE: Gary Chapman, Ph.D., and Ross Campbell, M.D., authors of The Five Love Languages of Children; and T. Berry Brazleton, M.D., author of Touchpoints Birth to 3; and Dr. Bruce Perry, author of Childhood Experience and the Expression of Genetic Potential: What Childhood Neglect Tells Us About Nature and Nurture.
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DRAW: Lea M. McGee, University of Alabama, and Donald J. Richgels, Northern Illinois University, authors of Literacy’s Beginnings: Supporting Young Readers and Writer, Third Edition; Marian R. Whitehead, author of Developing Language and Literacy with Young Children, Second Edition; and Jane Sowers, Ed.D., George Fox University, author of Language Arts in Early Education.
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PLAY: William Garrison, Ph.D., director of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center; Maria Luisa Escolar, M.D., developmental pediatrician at the University of North Carolina’s Center for the Study of Development and Learning; Susan McQuiston Ph.D., pediatric psychologist at Baystate Medical Center Children’s Hospital; and Lucy Calkins, Ph.D., professor of curriculum and teaching at Columbia University’s Teacher’s College.
About the Kansas Health Foundation:
The Kansas Health Foundation is a private philanthropy dedicated to improving the health of all Kansans. Based in Wichita, the Foundation pays out approximately $23 million annually in four major funding categories: Children’s Health, Leadership, Public Health and Policy.
Kansas Health Foundation
309 East Douglas • Wichita, KS 67202-3405
Phone locally: 316.262.7676 • Toll Free: 800.373.7681
Fax number: 316.262.2044 • E-mail: info@khf.org
Website: www.kansashealth.org
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