When Mommy Was Mad by Lynne Jonell The book was about a little boy who didn't know why his mom was upset so he tried to cheer her up and finally did in the end with a cute story about a borkeypine. Good story to read to children to children to explain why their mom might be mad, cute book. Once Upon a Banana by Jennifer Armstrong Once Upon a Banana is a great picture book that tells a story about the adventures of one banana. The book includes great illustrations and humor!

Importance of Early Literacy After researching the importance of early literacy I learned that early literacy does not just provide a base for reading and writing, early literacy also promotes many other things. Early literacy is important because it is the beginning of how the child experiences reading. You must provide good literacy experiences in order to give the child a good feeling when immersed in early reading activities. If the child has bad experiences with literacy that will only discourage them from continuing to grow in their literacy skills, therefore, teachers and parents must provide creative and fun literacy activities. Some of these activities might include letting the child hold and explore the book on their own instead of only reading to them yourself. Also you could allow the child to make their own book with family pictures and allow them to explore writing utensils. Another important aspect of early literacy is how it can help children as they grow and experience new things, for example, if a child is potty training you could read them a book about it or if a child is going to preschool or daycare for the first time you could read them a story about how much fun they are going to have in this new environment. You are preparing the child for new experiences that may be a little scary at first for the child. Early literacy can also help relationships grow as the child hears voices and language and identify the voices. I think one of the key things early literacy does is prepare children for school. Children who receive more early literacy education will do better in school than those children who did not receive early literacy experiences. Unfortunately there seems to be a cycle in early literacy with children coming from educated and well of family doing better than those who come from a poorer background and it is very hard to break this cycle but as teachers we will have to all we can to get all of our students reading and writing well. I think it is hard to come up with ways to get the children who are not ready to read and write up to speed with the rest of the kids but there are a few things you can do. I think one good idea is to make sure every parent knows where the library is and how you can receive a library card. As a teacher you could even make checking a book out at the public library an assignment just to make sure parents and children take advantage of this resource. Another idea would be to set up a library system in your own classroom so that children can take books home. It would also be a good idea to also have material for parents to read so that they are informed and can help their children grow in their literacy. Parents should also be informed of literacy groups and programs, such as Head Start so that they can take advantage of these programs if necessary. I think the most important thing in early literacy is that parents and teachers work together to help every child improve their literacy skills. Children must have good relationships with their mentors in order to support their learning so parents and teachers must be patient and encouraging when working with their children.

Dear Parents, This is a literacy bag that I have sent home with your child. The point of the literacy bag is to have you read the story included in the bag to your child and let your child explore the other activities I have included with the bag. This would be a great time to talk to your child about animals and how they should be treated. I hope you and your child have a great time with the literacy bag and have great discussion. I included a journal so that you and your child could include an entry about your experience and discussion. This literacy bag needs to be returned to me in a week with all the included materials. This literacy bag includes: • Baby Animal Coloring Book • Rabbit Stuffed Animal • Journal • Neighborhood Animals Book Thank You, Ms. Reid Click here to type

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