Keep 'em busy

I was at a conference today and the speaker was explaining how Ready Rosie empowers parents to help their child be ready for school.  The big buzz word is "universal" prek.  Actually,  for many children prek is too late.   Parents need to be in partnership and modeling good rich oral language from birth on.

One thing Ready Rosie discussed was the added benefits parents had seen from watching the Ready Rosie video clips.  There was a resounding consensus that their children's behavior had improved since viewing the videos.

Obviously, that got me thinking.   It's true, though.  We know that language needs to be authentic and in context.  We also know that in addition to the academic, or 'school' words, kids just need lots of words to use, to hear, to explore.  We also know that one predictor of early reading is the number of words kids know, the size, depth of their oral language.

So what does all of this have to do with discipline?  Think about it.  You are waiting to check out at the grocery store and your child has decided to grab/touch everything in sight.  Instead of arguing with your child how about work on oral language?  Ask, Do you see anything that begins with the  s sound in our basket?  Do we have anything that has two syllables?   Is there anything that needs to be refrigerated, kept cold? etc.  

Hand your child two items out of the cart and ask things like: which feels heavier?  Which is softer, harder?  Which is lighter? Do you think we have more cold things or things that go in the pantry?  Do we have more salty or sweet things?

By doing things like this in line while checking out not only are you keeping your children engaged, you are also growing their oral language!