Books Build Connections Toolkit

The American Association of Pediatrics has put together a collection of resources for pediatricians called the Books Build Connections Toolkit that “provides useful resources to form positive attitudes about and develop good practices for sharing books and receptive and expressive language development by introducing a variety of strategies and tools to support your patients’ early development, strong parent–child relationships, and future school success“.

While pediatricians make up the target audience, there are parts of the online toolkit that are meaningful for early education teachers. There are a number of PDF documents written on a 4th or 5th grade level and geared towards parents that provide practical tips for helping their child learn to read and specific ideas for sharing books with children at different ages.

The Early Literacy Resources section is robust, offering a lengthy list of organizations offering support for developing literacy skills.  These include familiar resources, such as the International Literacy Association, and some less familiar (to me!) resources such as Guys Read, which “was created and designed to reach boys directly with books recommended by other “guys” and to motivate adults (parents, teachers, librarians, booksellers, and publishers) to examine the role gender plays in the books written for and given to boys“.

What resources do you share with families to help promote early literacy?