Build Pre-Reading skills in Young Children with Dilly Duck

There are many academic articles with information about kindergarten pre-reading success tips for parents available. Kindergarten pre-reading preparation for parents and teachers’ articles take a deep dive into the benefits of pre-reading activities and describe age-appropriate pre-reading skills to target prior to reading a book. 

The purpose of this article is to provide action steps to use today, using a specific picture book as an example: Dilly Duck Plays All Day written by Holly DiBella-McCarthy. This picture book was written to engage young readers in a playful story while providing a tool for teachers and parents to build pre-reading skills in young children.

Book illustrations can be fun and inspiring. Reading the pictures is where pre-reading begins. Lead your child to focus in on the illustrations. Allow them time to wonder what will happen next, digest setting, identify expressions and anticipate events.  Celebrate predictions. Ask questions. I wonder what this story is about. How is she feeling here? Where do they live?

Author Holly’s 12-page STRETCH Activity Guide* free with book purchase, includes pre-reading, during reading, and post reading activities. Suggestions listed to build pre-reading skills in young children before reading, taken from page 4 of the STRETCH Guide are included below.

· Discuss new vocabulary in the book. New words may include driftwood, flock, crew, coo, jitterbug, chug-a-lug, patty-cake, frazzled, waddle. Ask children to act out what frazzled, or waddle looks like or what a coo might sound like. Ask them to dance the jitterbug or pretend they are chug-a-lugging water.

· Review sight words (words that children need to learn as a whole because they do not follow the conventional letter-sound relationships and therefore can not be sounded out) the, and, is, for, she, me, of, on, in, all, so, her, there, jump, with, they, then, away, who, by, and number words to ten. Locate some of these high frequency words in the book. Play a memory matching game with high frequency words.

· Spark interest by doing a Book Picture Walk and ask questions such as “What does this picture tell us?” How many ducks are there now? Can you count them? to allow children to anticipate story events and begin to make connections. 

· Identify the front cover, back cover, and title page of Dilly Duck Plays All Day. Name the author and the illustrator and define the roles of each.

· Sing related songs (lyrics listed in STRETCH Guide*) Use duck counters to count to ten and back again. Color a picture of a duck and trace the word ‘duck.’

This new picture book by Holly DiBella-McCarthy will engage and delight young children. Dilly Duck Plays All Day also promotes number and counting awareness, social emotional development, and pre-reading skill development. Pre-reading activities promote language development, models rhythmic cadence, exposes children to rhyming, sequencing, making predictions, inferencing, and encourages social-emotional development. Extension activities explores building friendships, problem solving, and invites conversation about handling difficult situations during play and what being a good friend looks like. Kindergarten pre-reading preparation begins with picture books! 

Get many reads out of the same picture book by first engaging in pre-reading activities! 

Dilly Duck Plays All Day will be available for purchase September 6, 2022. The Picture Book STRETCH Activity Guide is free to download on the Free Resources page. A new Dilly and Pals Beginner Reader and coloring book created to ignite imagination are also available. A Dilly plush (the character in Dilly and Pals: See Me Read) will be available this October.

*STRETCH (Story Time Ready Extension Tools for Children) Activity Guide

STRETCH acronym and Build Pre-Reading Skills in Young Children Using Picture Books is copyright protected, Holly DiBella-McCarthy,2022

article is copyright protected, Holly DiBella-McCarthy, 2022