Parents and other caregivers play a vital role as young children begin to build reading and other literacy skills. In fact, studies show that reading out loud to children, even in infancy, is one of the most important ways they first develop language. The process of building foundational literacy skills begins before kindergarten. Research supports integrating authentic language and literacy skills in children’s everyday experiences before kindergarten.

Here are three critical skills that children should learn for literacy development and how you can encourage them at home:

1.) Support Print Awareness. Print awareness enables us to recognize letters, words and sentences in our environment. It also involves the concept, print tells us something, and provides us with knowledge about books and the directionality of reading. When reading with your child, point out letters, words, sentences and capital letters. Use your finger to track the flow of the words as you read.

2.) Build Phonological Awareness. This is the ability to recognize and manipulate the sounds in spoken words. Activities to support phonological awareness include games related to sound manipulation, reciting nursery rhymes and singing.

3.) Encourage Phonics. At a preschool level, phonics is simply about helping children recognize sound and symbol relationships. Parents can play games with their child that identifies letter names and their corresponding sounds. Using an old keyboard to call out letters so children can find and press them while sounding out the corresponding sound, is also a great game to play as well.

There are many other fun games which build these fundamental literacy skills you can play at home with your child. Fostering early literacy skills at home is important for children to develop reading, writing, and language skills they will need as they grow.