Increase Your Child's Chance for Lifetime Success

An Early Childhood Longitudinal Study found that "of the children who were read to at least three times a week, as they entered kindergarten, 15% had sight-word recognition skills, compared to 8% who were read to fewer than 3 times a week." Creating a Zoo Book, or any personalized book for your young child, is a great project to start promoting that sight-word recognition.

For this project, you'll need:

Family photos from a recent vacation or family field trip, such as a trip to the zoo

An inexpensive photo album with sturdy front and back covers and plastic sleeves in each page

Brightly colored index cards, lined or unlined

A permanent marker, fine to medium point, in a dark, easy-to-read ink

Using your best printing skills, write the title of the book on an index card. For example, write "My Zoo Book" or use your child's name in the title ("Jenny's Zoo Book" or "Jason's Trip to the Zoo"). Peel back the plastic sleeve on the first album page and mount the title card on it. You can also glue the card on if you prefer.

Have your child help you arrange the photos in the order you'll put them in the book. This gives you an opportunity to promote the ideas of beginning, middle and end by talking about which events in the pictures happened first then next.

Use one index card for each photo and print one word on each card using the central idea of the photo. For example, if the photo is of your child standing in front of Monkey Island or a cage in the monkey house, write "monkey" on the index card. Mount the photo on the page and place the index card with its word directly underneath it.

Personalize the words as much as possible so they have a direct meaning to your child, such as your child's name or words like, "mommy", "daddy", or the names of siblings. You can use photos of any object your child recognizes, including "car", "house", or landmarks and objects from your trip, such as "zoo train", "popcorn" or "lunch".

When you're finished, the project will read, "My Zoo Book", with page after page of images like "giraffe", "elephant", "bear" and "kangaroo". The idea is to assist your child in connecting printed words to the things or people they represent. You can also use the book for counting (find the number of pages or count to the page of his favorite animal), and for other qualities, like color. For example, multiple pages of bears of different types, like grizzlies, black bears, and polar bears, turn into a study of brown, black and white.

Encourage your child to "read" the words with you and discuss details you see in each photo. You can also have your child trace over the letters of each word with his finger. Later, as he develops more manual coordination, he can practice printing his favorite words on a writing tablet or separate sheet of paper.

Creating your own books makes reading fun for your pre-reader. Add to your personalized library with books like "My House", "At the Beach" or "Fishing with Our Family". What a great record of childhood and terrific family tradition a yearly "My Birthday Book" would make.

Research tells us that "young children can begin to learn about the complex process of deriving meaning from print long before they can decode or even recognize letters. When young children see other people reading, and when others read to them or involve them in other activities related to reading, they become familiar with print and some of its uses. For example, when they see people who are important to them reading a recipe to bake a cake, reading a newspaper to find out what movies are on TV, or reading letters from distant relatives in Vietnam, young children experience reading as a meaningful activity and part of everyday life."

Not only will you have a unique collection of your family's books, but a record of family activities as well. And the most rewarding part of this project is the day your child begins to read "My Zoo Book" to you!