Dear Editor,

As we celebrate national Parent Month, I would like to add my tips to what Shauna-Kay Douglas wrote on September 2, 2024 in this newspaper entitled ‘Literacy matters’.

Here are seven tips that are based on a few Jamaican mothers who were willing to share with me the activities that they are doing to help build the reading and writing skills of their young children:

1) Talk and ask the children questions: While doing everyday chores, such as hanging clothes on the line or cooking, we can speak with our children and broaden their knowledge of the world and build their knowledge of words. As one mother said, “When hanging up clothes they are learning about the things that they are observing, from the clothes pins to the sky, and everything in between.”

2) Teach basic concepts: When children understand what these words mean — begin, final, and middle; left to right; top and bottom — it can make learning to read easier since these are important concepts for beginning readers. For example, once when I was helping a five-year-old boy to read, he had all the letters in the word ‘family’ correctly identified, but he had placed the letters from right to left therefore producing: ylimaf. Words are also a combination of letter sounds that have a beginning (B) letter sound, middle (A) letter sound, and a final (T) letter sound, which make the word BAT.

3) Read together: Sometimes, as parents, we are guilty of using reading as a form of punishment. We say, “Go and read a book!” Rather, we should be saying, “Come and read with me.” Read any time. The important point is that the child is hearing what book language sounds like and associating reading as a positive experience.

4) Learn words through labelling: Once I went to my church’s kindergarten only to find that the tree was labelled TREE. For a second, I was confused, but quickly realised that they were matching words to the objects in the children’s environment to promote the recognition of words.

5) Provide resources for handwriting development: Kneading and rolling dumpling as an activity can help to make the finger muscles stronger so that holding the pencil and writing becomes less tiring for the child. Playing with small pieces of plasticine or playdough and tearing and pasting also work. Tracing pictures, letters, or words helps with eye/hand coordination. Provide paper, crayons, paints, and pencils.

6) Make it a fun low-tech or high-tech activity: Putting letters together to make words can be done through low-tech activities, such as an unscramble word game. Your child can unscramble the letters to make a word by using purchased letter tiles or letter tiles made from cartridge paper. For example, give the child four letters like A, B, T, X to combine to make the word BAT. You can also decide to go high-tech — websites and YouTube channels such as Starfall and Alphablocks are my favourites.

7) Sponsor a child: Sometimes you can help a child by paying for them to have extra help. Some teachers provide extra support for children at the final year of basic school or grade one as these teachers are aware of how powerful these literacy skills are to the smooth transition into primary school.

What will it cost you as a parent? It will cost you time and effort. But the investment of this time and effort does pay off in an easier transition of your child from basic school to grade one. It is not the most expensive plaything or educational toy that will make the difference, but rather the consistent intentional interaction between the child and an older family member in the listed activities that can make a huge impact. So, it’s not who you are as an uptown or a downtown parent, but what you do to stimulate the early social and literacy development of your children that really matters.

Yewande Lewis-Fokum, PhD

Lecturer of literacy and language

School of Education

The UWI, Mona

yewande.lewis@uwimona.edu.jm