Teach key skills before your toddler goes to school

Like every parent, you want your child to get ahead in life, and there’s plenty you can do to improve her listening, talking, reading and maths skills long before she first sets foot in school. It needn’t be hard work, and it can certainly be great fun for you both.

The most important time to help your baby to develop these skills is from birth until two years old, the period when most of her brain development takes place. Here’s a guide to some of the things you can do to give her a head start.

Talk to your baby

Books
Share books with your child from four months onwards, sitting her on your lap. You don’t need to teach her to read, just show her how books work, so that she learns that words go from left to right and that a story has a beginning, middle and end.

Communication is central to all the skills your baby will need at school – so start chatting to them from the moment they're born.

"The most crucial part of becoming a learner is being able to communicate," says Liz Attenborough, from the National Literacy Trust. "It’s especially important that they can listen – if you can’t listen well, you can’t learn."

• Make eye contact with your baby and talk to them about anything that comes into your head.
• As they get older, leave space for them to babble back to you. Babies learn through imitation, so they need a lot of time for their lips, tongues and mouths to get the hang of talking.
• Babies

Play with your baby

Build a few simple learning games into your child’s daily routine and help them to investigate her environment.

Nursery rhymes are a great way of helping your child learn, as it’s much easier for her to hear and remember different sounds than a flat tone of voice.

Also give your baby the opportunity to:

• look at interesting things in the garden or home
• touch a variety of objects
• listen to songs, rhymes, stories and music
• taste a range of flavours
• investigate things that open, close, float, sink, twist and turn
• explore things that make noises and move
• play in her own way, alone or with other children
• play time

Make time to read with your baby

Reading stories with your child, even for just ten minutes a day, helps build important skills and teaches her to enjoy books.

Liz Attenborough says, "Share books with your child from four months onwards, sitting her on your lap. You don’t need to teach her to read, just show her how books work, so that she learns that words go from left to right and that a story has a beginning, middle and end."

You can also try:

• talking about the pictures and characters in the books and, as your child grows older, make up your own stories together
• buying books as presents and go to ‘rhyme times’ and ‘story times’ at your local library
• getting your child to spot letters they recognise, like the first letter of her name

The Government’s Bookstart programme (www.bookstart.co.uk) aims to promote a love of books. Your health visitor will give you a Bookstart pack with a free book and information about helping your child learn to read.

• The best children's books with dads in

Help your child with numbers

Maths is more than just learning to count; awareness of measuring and shapes is also important. Your child’s maths skills can be developed through stories, songs, games and imaginative play.

You might like to try

• counting items around the home, like tins in the cupboard or toys in the toy box
• singing counting songs like ’10 green bottles’
• pointing out numbers in everyday life – on the front door, birthday cards or clocks
• measuring things in the home with a tape measure
• comparing the lengths of different objects
• weighing ingredients for cooking
• finding everyday objects that are squares, circles or triangles

The most important thing when teaching your child any of these skills is to make them fun. Never force her to learn. If she enjoys learning, she will come to love it, and will be in great shape to start school.

• Choosing a school

Author

Dan Roberts is a feature-writer and columnist with over ten years’ experience of working for The Guardian, The Observer, The Independent, Daily Express and Mail on Sunday, as well as numerous national magazines. His areas of expertise include health, wellbeing, relationships, psychology and parenting. Dan also writes two monthly columns, including Diary of a Single Dad, a humorous but affectionate account of raising his ten-year-old son, Ben. The best of Dan’s work can be found on his website at www.dan-roberts.net

Your thoughts

What have you taught your child to get them ready for the world of school? What do you think of Dan's suggestions? Share your thoughts and ideas with other dads using the comments system below.