Many parents know how important it is to work on literacy skills with their children. A parent education  tool,  "From the Crib to the Classroom," offers easy strategies to guide and support the efforts of parents. However, Sharon Darling of the National Center for Family Literacy has a unique approach.  She says that a parent’s investment of just 1 minute a day will help children improve their literacy skills, as reported in an article in United Press International.

Darling says that singing short songs like “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” but leaving off the last word each time until there are no words left “always produces giggles from children and parents alike,” and she offers that as one quick way to improve a child’s literacy skills. Darling reminds parents that “learning shouldn’t be confined to the classroom.”

Other suggestions include choosing a letter of the day and looking for it together in printed materials (street signs, billboards, grocery store labels, etc.) and using that daily letter as the first letter in words in silly sentences (“Cats can cuddle,” for instance).

Utilize times like waiting for toast to pop up by challenging a child to look for a particular letter on everyday household items and see how many he can count before the toast is done.

These simple suggestions are easy to implement, and yet the payoff in increasing a child’s literacy skills is great.