At-Home Early Education? Preschool Teaching Strategies For Parents
What are the best preschool teaching strategies for parents? Whether you plan to homeschool your preschooler or you're searching for something to supplement everything your child learns in a formal pre-k program, take a look at what you need to know about at-home early educational approaches, books on teaching strategies, and more.
Start With A Conversation
More specifically, start with many parent-child conversations. Even though talking to your child may not seem like a primary teaching strategy, it is. Conversations help to create a language-rich home environment. This type of environment (in or outside of the formal educational setting) can help the young child to build crucial early literacy skills.
To maximize this parental teaching strategy:
- Ask open-ended questions. These are questions that don't have a yes or no answer. Instead, open-ended questions encourage your child to think about what you've asked, problem-solve, and use their growing vocabulary to answer you.
- Avoid baby talk. While it's tempting to change the way you talk and the words you choose when you speak to your child, this may not help them to develop communication skills. Use appropriate vocabulary and multi-word sentences.
- Engage in back-and-forth conversations. Give your child time to talk too. Encourage your child to add their opinion, ask you questions, or talk to you about their interests.
As your child grows and develops early literacy and communication skills you can begin to add new vocabulary words. Use these words in regular conversations and invite your child to do the same.
Find An Authoritative Resource
Even though conversations with your child are a start, these types of early literacy and communication-building activities aren't the only ways to help your preschooler to learn. Are you stuck and looking for early childhood education activities or the best ways to teach your child at home? Preschool teaching strategy books for parents can help.
When you choose a teaching strategy book or another similar resource, consider:
- The source. What type of background, experience, or education does the author have? The book should feature an author or authors who are early childhood experts, child development pros, or work extensively with preschoolers.
- The types of approaches. Do the strategies in the book match up with your educational beliefs?
- The activities. Are you searching for more than just a general approach? If you answered yes, then you will need a book that includes activities or at-home lesson plans.
One teaching strategy book may not meet every educational need. This means you may want to choose a few different resources to help your child learn at home.
