Experts recommend that you read to your child twenty minutes a day.

Let's do the math and see why:

• 20 minutes a day x 30 days = 600 minutes (10 hours a month)
• 10 hours a month x 12 months = 120 hours a year (of one-to-one reading time)
• 120 hours x 5 years = 600 hours (recommended for pre-kindergarten literacy preparation)

With young children, twenty minutes is a long time to sit still.

For emerging readers, I recommend dividing the 20 minutes into two 10 minute reading times:

1. Read Book Words for 10 minutes.
2. Read My Words for 10 minutes.

Book Words

Read books together 10 minutes a day.

• A picture book or easy reader takes 5 minutes to read, so two books add up to 10 minutes.
• Ask your child to read the first book. (Use the five finger test to find a book that is just right.)
• You read the second book aloud. (This will help your child learn new words.)

My Words

Read your child's words 10 minutes a day.

Children don’t learn to read just by listening to someone else reading. Learning to read also requires what teachers call direct instruction. Use this ten minutes to work with letters, sounds, and words.

• Use environmental print, the words your child sees everyday. Your child can cut up your junk mail to find letters to make an alphabet book, or words and photos for a word book.
• Play word games. Use the magnetic letters on the refrigerator or play word games that you make, find online, or buy at the store.
• Ask your child can write, just like you do. Write the grocery list, a to-do list, or a letter.

Young children are in the first stage of writing, so at first their writing looks like squiggles. Soon the squiggles will look like letters and then, words! (Literacy takes place on a continuum.)