I stumbled upon a fascinating brochure about a book called “Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs,” which is about communicating with small children, and with moving and managing their behavior to promoting life skills. Written by Ellen Galinsky, who is behind the Families and Work Institute, writes of seven skills that are extremely helpful to review. As the parent of a very outgoing, headstrong, and large-personality four year old, I am more than happy to employ these techniques and research more from MITM.
Galinsky writes, “In a landmark study, Catherine Snow of Harvard University and her colleagues, followed a number of families over several years to determine which experiences provided to children made the biggest difference in their language, literacy and reading skills. One of their most significant findings was the importance of family support of children’s literacy. Snow explains, ‘These were [families] that had bought children’s books; that ensured that children [were] read to regularly by parents and by other adults; that had pencils, paper, and crayons around and encouraged children to write. [These were] homes in which the parents themselves also engaged in regular reading, got a daily newspaper, or read magazines and books regularly. There are many things you can do to develop your toddler’s interest in reading while also promoting the life skill of Communicating.
- Be a Role Model. ‘To help encourage your child’s interest in reading, books need to be part of his or her daily life. You can create family traditions around story time, like always reading the same book at a particular time of year or telling stories at meals.’
- Create a Reading Together Routine.‘Reading before bedtime or naptime creates a comforting routine that can help with the transition to sleep, while also supporting your toddler’s language development.’
- Offer Choices and Embrace Repetition. ‘Toddlers love to have control through choices. You can offer two or three books and let them choose.’
- Talk About Books. ‘Asking “what” and “why” are great conversation starters. They help your child talk through his or her understanding of the story.’
- Make it Fun. ‘It can be more fun for both of you, if you read stories in a dramatic way.’
- Go Back and Forth in Talking Together. ‘The best conversations for learning involve what researchers call “serve and return”- you or your child does something (serves) and the other responds (returns), back and forth like a game of ball. “Children learn language in a situation where they talk to you about what they’re interested in, and you respond,” says Catherine Snow.’
- Use Rich and Expressive Language in Talking with your Child. ‘In taping family dinnertime conversations over the course of several years, Catherine Snow and her colleagues found that parents who used a large vocabulary in conversations with their children had children with better literacy skills later on.’
Communicating involves much more than understanding language, speaking, reading and writing- it is the skill of determining what you want to communicate and realizing how your communications will be understood by others. It is the skill that teachers and employers feel is most lacking today.”
Rebecca Conroy is an artist, stylist, and former editor of A Child Grows in Brooklyn. She is from New York City, and has an MFA from Columbia University in screenwriting. Rebecca often finds herself on film and photography sets making things run or look better, and is the mom of two outrageously wonderful kids.