Early Reading Together

An Overview

Early Reading TogetherEarly Reading Together™ is designed to enhance the support which parents provide for their children’s language and literacy development at home.

Early Reading Together was developed and first implemented in 1983, and evolved from the wider implementation of Reading Together™, a workshop programme which: helps parents provide effective support when their child (usually from 5½ years onwards) is reading to his/her parent(s) at home; was developed within an experimental action-research project at Canterbury University in 1982; has been widely implemented throughout New Zealand since 1982; and has been shown to be highly effective in enhancing children’s social and academic development.

Early Reading Together meets the need expressed by teachers and parents for an effective family language/literacy programme to support younger children. It incorporates key features and processes of Reading Together.

The resources for the programme can be ordered here.

About the Workshops

Early Reading Together usually comprises 3 workshops over 3 weeks, with each workshop lasting 1 hour and 15 minutes. Learn More

Key Points about the Programme

Early Reading Together is:

» a low-cost group programme which helps parents of young children (babies to 5 and 6 year olds) to support their children's language and literacy development at home

» designed to enhance the language and literacy practices of the home

» specifically designed to support children and parents from diverse language/literacy, cultural, educational and socio-economic backgrounds

» practical, user friendly, enjoyable and manageable for teachers, parents, librarians and children

» based on a sound theoretical and research framework

» implemented on a voluntary basis by junior school teachers, early childhood educators and librarians 

 

Early Reading Together is designed to help parents:

» Understand more fully the ways in which talking with young children and reading to them (from the time they are babies) helps the child's language and literacy development

» Explore additional ways of supporting children's language and reading development when they are reading stories and rhymes, and singing songs together

» Find out more about books, rhymes and songs which are suitable for young children and enjoyable for them

» Borrow books and other resources from libraries and access support from librarians, if they are not already doing so