Make reading a team effort and part of the daily routine.Teachers and caregivers read with children every day and encourage parents and other family members to do the same. Adults read to the youngest children individually and in small intimate groups. For older children, adults establish daily story times during which they read to children and listen as children read to them or to one another.
Explore oral language sounds. Children learn to make the sounds of words and letters by listening, talking, and having fun with oral language—singing, reciting rhymes, hearing, inventing and acting out stories. They build phonological awareness by identifying rhymes, alliterations, and syllables and by creating their own rhymes, alliterations, and word plays. As they write and hear individual letter sounds, they develop phonemic awareness and use phonics to connect letter sounds to print.