Five Ways to Encourage Your Preschooler to Read

• Read to her from a wide variety of materials: Newspapers, picture books, poems, road signs, and cookbooks will introduce your child to new words and their meanings.
• Label your house: the clothes in his closet, your garden -- even your body! See if he can figure out what each word says.
• Play restaurant and let your child take your order down on a pad. Even if it's all chicken scratch, she'll get the message that the words are connected to the food.
• Point out similarities when you can. Tri-cycle, tri-angle, tri-ceratops all have something in common. Can your child figure out what it is?
• Give your child a turn on the computer or typewriter, let him compose a letter or story by himself. Make sure to print it out. He'll be proud of his words, no matter what they say!

More on: Reading and Language Arts Skill-Builders for Grades Pre-K - 1