Author: Mickie Stiers

Print Awareness

Materials for Print Awareness Grab & Go Station
Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See? By Bill Martin, Jr.
Bunny Cakes by Rosemary Wells
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin, Jr.
Click Clack Moo, Cows that Type by Doreen Cronin
Dear Mrs. LaRue by Mark Teague
Dear Peter Rabbit by Alma Flor Ada
Doorbell Rang by Pat Hutchins
Drat That Fat Cat by Pat Thomson
Have You Seen My Cat? by Eric Carle
Have You Seen My Duckling? by Nancy Tafuri
I Went Walking by Sue Williams
It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw
Jump, Frog, Jump by Robert Kalan
Little Red Hen by Byron Barton
Look at the Baby by Kelly Johnson
Now We Can Go by Ann Jonas
Peekaboo Morning by Rachael Isadora
Trashy Town by Andrea Zimmerman
Uh-oh! by Rachael Isadora
Where is Baby’s Belly Button? by Karen Katz
Whose Nose and Toes? by John Butler

Print Awareness

Babies
Activity #1
Read Rachael Isadora’s Uh-oh! or Ann
Jonas’ Now We Can Go with your baby. Point out the pictures and then show the real object. This helps your baby understand that
pictures represent real things. Later, your child will learn that print represents words that stand for real things.

Print Awareness

Babies
Activity #2
Let your baby choose his/her own book to hold, turn pages, and look at pictures. This is the first step to you baby understanding how a book “works”.
Or Read Kelly Johnson’s Look at the Baby or Karen Katz’s Where is Baby’s Belly Button to get started.

Print Awareness

Toddlers
Activity #1
Let your child choose a book for you to read. Hold up the book and point out the title, author and illustrator, and show how to turn the pages – or have your child turn the pages. These steps help your child understand how to handle a book.
As you’re out and about, be sure to point to signage. You child will soon recognize the places you visit by the
special signs they see.

Print Awareness

Toddlers
Activity #2
Read a book that contains
repetitive text, such as Byron
Barton’s Little Red Hen, Bill Martin’s Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, or Nancy Tafuri’s Have You Seen My Duckling? and point to the repeating words as you read them. This helps your child understand you are reading words, not
pictures, and that you read from left to right and
top to bottom.

Print Awareness

Preschoolers
Activity #1
Let your child choose a book to read. Give him/her paper and crayons and give time for him/her to “write” about the story afterwards. Those scribbles represent real print to your child. Or, have your child tell you about the story and write it down in his/her words.

Print Awareness

Preschoolers
Activity #2
Let your child choose a book to read. Hold it upside down –does your child notice? Start “reading” it
backwards – does your child notice?
How silly!
This is a fun way to see if your child knows the right way to read a book. If your child doesn’t know, show him/her how you handle a book, and explain the front and back, etc.