Grace and I signed up for an early literacy class through our local library and it is so cool! It runs 6 weeks and we just had the first one. Did you know that it is important to sing to your children and have them sing with you? Of course you did, but did you know why? Well, it is so they can hear different parts of words. All those syllables that kindergartners spend clapping up a storm over, and our children learn it from singing!! Have you ever noticed that songs are broken up with the syllables of words for each note? You don't ever sing, "Hi-ck-o-ry" You sing it in syllables, "Hick-or-y". Plus, the library woman said that children who had memorized 4-8 mother goose rhymes by kindergarten did the best in learning to read and the "accelerated" learning continued on after that as well. So, play rhyming games, sing songs and read lots of mother goose rhymes and Dr. Seuss and any other book that rhymes! (the coolest part is that we got a book for free, "Llama, Llama, red Pajama" cute, if you haven't read it, you should!)
