Contains more than one thousand games, activities, songs, and stories designed to get children excited about reading.

Introduction: The Great debate -- Looking to brain research for answers -- First things first! -- Basic principles of emergent literacy -- Realistic expectations -- Birth to three-year-old accomplishments -- Three- to four-year-old accomplishments -- Five-year-old accomplishments -- Celebrating milestones -- A Road map for instruction -- How to use this book -- Getting ready: Listening games and activities -- Group games -- Center games and activities -- Field trips -- Transitions -- Books about listening -- Falling in love with the sounds of language -- Onomatopoeia -- Alliteration -- Rhyme -- Reading aloud to children -- Tips for reading aloud -- Selecting books for listening and loving -- Comprehending stories: Enacting, dramatizing, and recreating stories -- Enacting and dramatizing activities -- Recreating activities -- Using questions to enhance comprehension -- Knowledge (accurate recall) -- Comprehension (understanding of information) -- Application (use of information) -- Analysis (taking information apart) -- Synthesis (putting information together in a new way) -- Evaluation (critical judgement) -- Strategies for developing higher level thinking -- Making inferences -- Patterning/sequencing -- Drawing conclusions -- Comparing and contrasting -- Analyzing -- Establishing cause and effect -- Predicting -- Brainstorming -- Inventing -- Composing -- Evaluating -- Developing oral language: Extending and enriching vocabulary -- A Picture elicits 1,000 words -- Making words meaningful -- Matching words to thoughts and actions -- A Dozen ways to tell a story -- Following directions -- Understanding the functions of print: Understanding spatial orientation -- Activities -- Books, songs, and stories about spatial concepts -- Recognizing part/whole relationships -- Activities -- Story maps -- Putting thoughts on paper -- Why use creative writing? -- Writing activities -- Bookmaking -- Acquiring reading skills: "Reading" predictable text -- Recognizing sight words -- Sight word games -- Developing phonological awareness -- Phonological awareness activities -- Appendix: Assessment checklists -- Patterns -- Maze -- Rebus -- Sequence cards -- American Sign Language -- Sound word cards -- Recipes -- Games.