By Children’s Librarian Shelley Harris Back in the pre-COVID-19 days, we used to get small kids coming up to the desk and proudly reading a book to us. Their caregiver would laugh and say they had it memorized or were describing the pictures. And guess what? That is also reading! The articles about Picture Walks … Read more
By Children’s Librarian Shelley Harris Like the sounds we talked about last week, rhymes and rhyming words are an important part of pre-reading and reading. It’s another way to play with words, see how they’re made and how to break them down. This helps kids be able to understand how to sound words out when … Read more
By Children’s Librarian Shelley Harris When we think about talking with our smallest kids, there are so many sounds involved: animal sounds, choo choo sounds, airplane sounds. These may feel like small things, but they’re important—the sounds we make with our kids are the building blocks of words. Being able to hear and practice those … Read more
By Children’s Librarian Shelley Harris Welcome back and happy autumn! Recently, Miss Jenny shared a book about a day that should have been exciting and wonderful turning into a big disappointment. Those days feel pretty common right now. Our kids want to go to school and learn and play with their friends—but right now, it … Read more
By Shelley Harris, Children’s Librarian Miss Jenny and I have been sharing a lot of words this week—big ones like “disappointed” and fancy ones like “scarlet.” The more words kids hear and know, the easier it is to read and keep learning new words: They can guess what a new word means when they know … Read more
By Shelley Harris, Children’s Librarian Rhyming is a key skill for kids on the path to reading. When kids can easily hear parts of words, it helps them understand how to decode them when they are ready to read. Nursery rhymes are great to share, because they often include words kids won’t hear in everyday … Read more
