You may have wondered at some point: Am I doing enough to help my child get ready to read?
Families hear more than ever about literacy gaps, school readiness and the lingering effects of the pandemic on children’s learning. National reading scores remain below pre-pandemic levels, and in Alabama, fourth-grade reading results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress have also slipped.
But early childhood experts say the answer does not start with pressure or expensive programs. It starts early, in everyday moments, through talking, reading aloud, singing, rhyming and helping children build language long before formal reading instruction begins.
Early literacy is not just about whether a child can already read words on a page. From birth to five years old, literacy grows through conversation, stories, songs, play and repeated exposure to language.
VOICES for Alabama’s Children Executive Director Tracye Strichik said that is one of the most important points for families to understand.
“Early literacy doesn’t start at kindergarten,” she said. “It actually starts at birth.”
She said many people think early literacy is about phonics, decoding or teaching children to figure out words. But in the earliest years, it is more about vocabulary, language exposure, listening and understanding how stories work - skills that make reading possible later.
Where to Find Help
For many families, the question is not whether those things matter, but where to find practical help and trustworthy materials.
“Parents, they need [help], but they don’t know where to ask for it or get it,” Allison Fuller, Alabama Public Television's (APT) infant and toddler education specialist, said.
For Fuller's team, that help takes different forms. It could look like the PBS KIDS series Phoebe and Jay, which helps kids notice and use everyday text, or PBS KIDS for Parents resources that find ways to explore literacy for different ages.
APT offers both quick entry points for families and more structured materials for educators and child care providers. For educators, PBS LearningMedia offers literacy collections, while APT provides professional development trainings tied to the years before and around kindergarten.
Samantha Guy, APT's pre-K training specialist, said one of the easiest places for parents to begin is PBS Parents, where they can search by topic or even by PBS KIDS show. “You can search based on what kind of activity you want, like a cooking activity, a craft or a game,” she said.
Guy said parents are also welcome to use PBS LearningMedia, which is geared toward teachers and educators. “That’s where you’re going to find more in-depth lesson plans,” she added.
Free & Research-Backed Resources
Taken together, APT's resources are designed to meet families and educators at different points of need.
There is also research behind them. An independent review of 45 studies involving nearly 25,000 children ages 2 to 8 found that PBS KIDS media and resources improved early literacy skills, including letter recognition, vocabulary development and phonological and phonemic awareness.
Cost and access are part of the story too. Strichik said free, widely available resources are especially important for families without access to formal early learning services.
“Alabama Public Television is one of the few tools that reaches every household in Alabama,” she said. “Not everyone has access to preschool or pre-K.”
That reality is one reason Guy said APT emphasizes its free PBS-based materials. “If you cannot afford childcare, if you are a stay at home mom and you're just trying to figure out a way to get your child school ready, the PBS resources are there, and they're free for you to use,” she said.
The state’s First Class Pre-K program is nationally recognized for quality, but it serves only part of the birth-to-5 population, and many children spend those years outside formal early-learning settings.
Strichik said while families should be aware of how much time young children spend viewing screens, APT gives families an educational option for screen time, with programming geared toward early literacy development.
For families, grandparents and home child care providers, that means much of early literacy still depends on what happens in everyday life.
Still, Strichik said families may face real barriers.
“It’s not that they don’t care,” she said. “They just have limited time and capacity. And stress.”
Those pressures can make back-and-forth conversation harder, she said, even though those everyday interactions help children build language.
So the broader message is a reassuring one. Literacy starts early, but it does not have to be complicated. It can start with reading the same book again and again, singing songs in the car, talking through daily routines, asking children to describe what they see and making language part of everyday life.
For the parent wondering whether they are doing enough, the answer may be simpler than it seems: talk, read, sing, play - and know that there is help that is already available.
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