If you're the caregiver of a child under the age of 5, you are probably right in the thick of what we in library-land call "concepts." Colors, shapes, numbers, letters, etc. You're probably spending a lot of time talking about the sounds animals make, opposites, and all the other fun basic concepts that form the building blocks of early childhood education and of your child's understanding of the world.
If you've been to a lot of our storytimes at the library, or if you've read a lot of my blog posts about early literacy, you might wonder where teaching these academic-type subjects fits in with the practices and skills that are the foundation of early literacy.
If you're new to the world of young kiddos in the library, you might be wondering what all this "early literacy" nonsense is. Rest assured--early literacy is not early reading and we are not in the business of teaching your 1-year-old how to read. But early literacy is the idea that there are skills that children can develop before they learn how to read that can make learning to read easier. And in order to develop these skills, we encourage caregivers to incorporate five simple practices into their child's play and routine. The five practices are:
- Talking
- Singing
- Reading
- Writing
- Playing
If you want to learn more about these practices, what they do for your child's brain development, and some ideas of how you can incorporate them into your routine, check out this blog post that I wrote last summer.
When it comes to teaching children the basic concepts that are part of the typical preschool curriculum, the fact that they are not explicitly included in the five practices that we hammer home with caregivers in all of our programming means that some people worry that they shouldn't even be bringing them up. But it's perfectly natural that we would want to share our favorite books, rhymes, and songs with our children, and many of those include colors, letters, numbers, and other concepts! And while learning your colors, shapes, sizes, and other concepts isn't something we stress a lot with the under-five crowd, they are important things to understand for preschool and after. AND, you can incorporate these great concepts into your use of the five practices!
Try TALKING to your child about your favorite colors, and the favorite colors of the other people in your family. SING a song about opposites--try This Is Big, Big, Big or If You're Happy And You Know It. READ your favorite books that include concepts. The Main Library has a designated concept book section, and the North Branch uses stickers to designate their concept books. Or check out the list at the end of this blog post, and the other similar lists that will be part of this series! To practice WRITING, pull out paper and crayons and practice drawing shapes. Or try using only one color per page. PLAY a game together that incorporates numbers. Pretend you are a hungry monster and you need 3 cars to eat. Or that you are a princess getting ready for bed and you need 5 pillows.
If you're looking for books that fit some of these concepts, check out this list featuring all books about the color red! And stay tuned--I'll be making more book lists featuring ALL of our favorite concepts as the months go on.
We all love teaching concepts to the kids in our lives--letters, numbers, colors, and shapes. Check out these fun books when you're talking with your kiddos about colors! HerrickDL KidPicks
