Excerpt
Preschool and kindergarten teachers, this toolkit is for you. It is designed to be a quick read or a pick up resource, that will make your job easier and your teaching more effective.

Within these pages, you will find references to core research in reading readiness. Just as important for your daily classroom, you will find carefully designed, easy-to-use ideas and activities for supporting the emergent literacy development of 3-6 year old children. Beginning with the most foundational skills, this book ends at the point children are ready to crack the reading/alphabetic code.

“Why do I need anything else?” you might ask. “I have curriculum, I have standards. I have a degree.” All those are an excellent base but, as you well know, the best teachers use those as a framework from which to build. In addition, new information about how children grow to be readers is being discovered every day. No practicing teacher can keep up with it all.

To truly be effective, you need a toolbox beyond your curriculum, standards and theoretical foundation, one that contains “what I do when” ideas, from trusted, experienced voices. The most dynamic and effective classrooms are full of those complementary elements. As you incorporate the three ready-to-read foundations (conversations, engaging read alouds and early phonological awareness games) into your classroom, you will have more children reach bench¬marks and goals identified by your school, school district and state. You will have more children truly ready to read.