It is well known that developing early reading skills is crucial to children’s success in school. Children who enter school with large vocabularies start school ahead of children who haven’t been exposed to a rich language environment.

How do you, the parent, help your child have a large vocabulary?

Talk and read to your children every day. That may seem like a silly suggestion – talk and read to your child, but it is also well know that some parents say very little to their children except for telling them to do something such as come to eat, go to bed, stop making so much noise!

And many parents spend very little time reading to their children.

When you are driving with your children talk to them. I have seen many cars go by me where the parent is on the telephone, and the child is either watching a video, playing with an electronic game, or sleeping.

By pointing out what you are seeing from the car windows to your children, you are exposing them to language they may not know.

You can talk to them about things that happened at home before you left.

When you go to the grocery store, take your child with you and talk to your child about things in the store that you are seeing such as shopping carts, shelves and display cases.

Talk about the differences in colors of food, sizes of food, types of food — fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy products. Talk about the difference between a cooler and a freezer.

Point out ice cream has to be in a freezer, but milk and cottage cheese have to be in a cooler.

When you are watching TV with your child, make sure your child knows the names of things they are seeing such as mountains, rainbows, desserts, lakes, oceans and clouds.

Read lots of books to your child. Read to your child at least once every day. Show them the pictures as you read the book and be sure they know what they are seeing.

Ask your child if they know what something is if you think it is a new word such as “caterpillar.”

It is important that you, the parents, reach out and help children get the early literacy foundation they need to succeed in school.

Our children are out future. Invest in the future now, by talking and reading to your children.

Celebrate with us the Week of the Young Child. Come to the Center for Early Childhood Education, IU Kokomo.

We will have books for you to read to your children, ages 1 month to 5 years, and we will give you a book for your child to take home.

Call us at 455-9427 or e-mail us at msskinne@iuk.edu so we can plan on the number of books we will need.

Dr. Marilyn Skinner is the director of the Center for Early Childhood Education at Indiana University Kokomo.