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About Brenda Hieronymus
Brenda Hieronymus is a Lead Teacher and the Assistant Director for the Child Development Program at the Arlitt Child and Family Research and Education, where she teaches young children from diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds, develops and implements state-of-the-art curriculum materials and mentors practicum students.
She is also a Clinical Faculty member in Early Childhood Education for the College of Education, Criminal Justice and Human Services where she teaches courses in literacy, science, and math methods. Ms. Hieronymus holds a Bachelor's degree in Kindergarten/Primary Education and a Master's degree in Early Childhood Education.
She has provided numerous workshops and presentations for early childhood educators throughout the country. These include presentations to the National Association for the Education of Young Children, parents, Ohio Department of Education, and Education Services Centers.
She is co-author of five early childhood curriculum books: More Than Counting (1995), More Than Magnets (1997), More Than Painting (1999), Much More Than Counting (1999), and More Than Letters (2001), for teachers, plus two books for parents, Get Ready to Read (2006) and Get Ready for Math (2006). In 1999, Ms. Hieronymus was named Teacher of the Year by the Ohio Association for the Education of Young Children.
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Websites that Matter!
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rif.org
Reading Is Fundamental, Inc. prepares and motivates children to read by delivering free books and literacy resources to those children and families who need them most.
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reachoutandread.org
Reach Out and Read (ROR) is a national non-profit organization that promotes early literacy by giving new books to children and advice to parents about the importance of reading aloud in pediatric exam rooms across the nation.
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thereadingtub.com
The Reading Tub, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation dedicated to promoting reading and literacy. The Reading Tub, Inc. began as a small group of parents who believe in the power of sharing a book with a child. Today we are a group of volunteers committed to expanding our children’s world through reading, and we know we’re not alone in this belief. In visiting our site, we know you want to make that same investment for the children in your life, too.
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firstbook.org
Giving children from low-income families the opportunity to read and own their first new books.
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parentsasteachers.org
Parents as Teachers is the overarching program philosophy of providing parents with child development knowledge and parenting support.
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jstart.org
We know every child enters the world with potential. Jumpstart ensures that those children most at-risk still reach this promise. By providing extraordinary attention in yearlong one-to-one relationships, Jumpstart inspires children to learn, adults to teach and communities to progress together… the results are transformational.
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scholastic.com
Scholastic, the global children's publishing, education and media company, has a corporate mission supported through all of its divisions of helping children around the world to read and learn. Recognizing that literacy is the cornerstone of a child's intellectual, personal and cultural growth, for over 85 years, Scholastic has created quality products and services that educate, entertain and motivate children and are designed to help enlarge their understanding of the world around them.
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littleonesreadingresource.com
"Little Ones Reading Resource" is dedicated to every child and every family out there and to educating us "big" people about the importance of reading to children and its role in child development.
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Get Ready to Read!
Authors: Sally Moomaw, MEd, Brenda Hieronymus, MEd, Yvonne Pearson
You can help parents foster emerging literacy skills in their preschool children in a way that's developmentally appropriate and fun: by collaborating to develop their child's lifelong love of reading and writing. Incorporating selected teacher-tested activities from the popular book More Than Letters, this accessible guide includes a variety of easy-to-implement strategies and activities for both you and parents.
Get Ready to Read! helps parents:
• work closely with their child care providers to enhance or supplement existing literacy programming
• build language-rich environments at home to increase vocabulary and comprehension
• understand developmentally appropriate practices to better support their child's unique learning style and pace
• use big books, interactive charts, writing centers, and other literacy tools to help children learn
What Makes a Children's Book Good?
A good children's book interests the children who read it and makes them want to read more. Some such books appear regularly on lists of recommended children's reading. These are the books that appeal to many youngsters and have won the respect of librarians and educators. The real test of a "good" book, however, is your children's reactions to it. Take your cue from them. Trust your instincts and your children's judgment as you explore the world of children's literature together.
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How to Nurture a Growing Reader
Reading doesn't just happen. It is a skill that must be nurtured from a child's earliest years. Once children know how to read, they still need gentle coaxing and support to reach their full potential as readers.
Here are a dozen tips for nurturing your growing readers:
1. Read with your children at least once every day.
2. Make sure they have plenty to read. Take them to the library regularly, and keep books and other reading materials in their reach.
3. Notice what interests your child, then help find books about those things.
4. Respect your child's choices. There's nothing wrong with series fiction if that's what keeps a young reader turning the pages.
5. Praise your children's efforts and newly acquired skills.
6. Help your child build a personal library. Children's books, new or used, make great gifts and appropriate rewards for reading. Designate a bookcase, shelf or box where your children can keep their books.
7. Check up on your children's progress. Listen to them read aloud, read what they write and ask teachers how they're doing in school.
8. Go places and do things with your children to build their background knowledge and vocabulary, and to give them a basis for understanding what they read.
9. Tell stories. It's a fun way to teach values, pass on family history and build your children's listening and thinking skills.
10. Be a reading role model. Let your children see you read, and share some interesting things with them that you have read about in books, newspapers or magazines.
11. Continue reading aloud to older children even after they have learned to read by themselves.
12. Encourage writing along with reading. Ask children to sign their artwork, add to your shopping list, take messages and make their own books and cards as gifts.
Source: Helping Your Children Become Better Readers Brochure from RIF/VISA
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Top 5 Literacy Tips for Parents
1. Read to your children yes, but as you read also elaborate on the meaning
behind the illustrations and the story itself as well as defining unfamiliar vocabulary words you encounter as you are reading.
Example:
The Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
You might talk about what fruits and other foods your child likes to eat and compare those to what the caterpillar eats. Give explanations or definitions for new words such as cocoon. At a different time you might read a non-fiction book about caterpillars and compare the information caterpillars in that book to The Hungry Caterpillar. This encourages your child to think more abstractly and provides a knowledge base of new words.
2. Our written language is similar to our oral language in vocabulary, in meaning and sentence structure. Success in reading is directly related to oral language development, so use a large body of rich vocabulary words when talking with your children. You can do this at mealtime, play time, on a walk and in the car. When they begin to spell and read words, such as exuberant, gigantic, elaborate, and unique or magenta for example, they will have heard them in the context of a real experience with you and better understand the meaning. You might just find your children using the same vocabulary in their own conversations!
3. Give your children opportunities for “pretend play or symbolic play.” This means pretending to be a dancer, a fire fighter, a teacher etc. Setting up a grocery store on the porch and using rocks for the money or creating an airplane from the kitchen chairs and pretending to go to Disney World are also examples of this type of play. This is a naturally occurring stage of development for all children, but parents can continue to support such play for kindergarten and primary children. Initially the play will be driven by your ideas, but will eventually become more child-driven and directed. During such play, children begin to use found items to symbolize things like the money or symbolize things that aren’t really there, such as the airplane. When your children learn to read, the words are really symbols for many other things and big concepts.
4. Play rhyming games with your children. Make it fun and even silly at times. Understanding rhyming words helps your children use what they know about the oral language to use problem solving strategies when they encounter unknown words in reading. Poetry books are a great way to include rhyming words in the reading selection for children.
5. Play alliteration games with your children. Funny firefly, silly sloth, happy hippo, etc. are examples, as are sentences such as, “Lots of lovely leaves lay on the ground. Five fat frogs flopped into the water”. Younger children will be delighted with the sound of the language and older children will delight in creating their own word combinations or sentences. Have fun and don’t expect perfection!
Copyright 2007 Do Not Reprint Without Permission
Brenda Hieronymus, MEd
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