Several researchers have shown that early childhood exposure to reading and talking with parents has a direct positive impact on the academic success of children in later years. Activities that children share with parents, such as, conversation at mealtimes, reading books and play are very important in language development. Dr. Gail Jordan, Associate Professor at Bethel College in Minnesota, has noted that parents and children share a social and emotional bond that helps children learn faster. Parents can tailor their conversations to their children and can explain concepts better by relating them directly to the experiences of their children.

Dr. Jordan has developed project EASE (Early Access to Success in Education) to enable parents to help their children develop literacy skills for later academic success. Parents participating in the project use books as a starting point for conversations about various topics and help their children develop an extensive vocabulary and increase reading comprehension.

There are five activity units in project EASE that promote the development of language and literacy skills:

1. Vocabulary: Words, Words, Words (Link to Post)
2. Storybook reading: Once Upon a Time (Link to Post)
3. Letter recognition and sound awareness: Cracking the Code (Link to Post)
4. Narrative retelling: A Time to Remember
5. Non-fiction text: Talking About the World

Over the next few weeks, I will write a post on each of these activity units. For now, listed below are some PicabooLane recommendations based on the project EASE activity units that you might want to have as part of your library or look for in your public library:

These books are also available in the PicabooLane Store.

This post is based on the article “The Power of Family Conversation” by Laura Pappano, Harvard Education Newsletter, Volume 24(3). You can read the article at http://www.hepg.org/hel/article/194.