The Invisible Toolbox: The Power of Reading to Your Child from Birth to Adolescence

An Essential Tool for Preparing Your Child for Kindergarten and Beyond

Reading aloud to your children is essential. Longtime elementary school teacher Kim Jocelyn Dickson believes every child begins kindergarten with a lunchbox in one hand and an "invisible toolbox" in the other. In The Invisible Toolbox, Kim shares with parents the single most important thing they can do to foster their child's future learning potential and nurture the parent-child bond that is the foundation for a child's motivation to learn. She is convinced that the simple act of reading aloud has a far-reaching impact that few of us fully understand and that our recent, nearly universal saturation in technology has further clouded its importance.

In The Invisible Toolbox, parents, educators, and early literacy advocates will discover:
• Ten priceless tools that will fill their child's toolbox when they read aloud to their child
• Tools parents can give themselves to foster these gifts in their children
• Practical tips for how and what to read aloud to children through their developmental stages
• Dos and don'ts and recommended resources that round out all the practical tools a parent will need to prepare their child for kindergarten and beyond

Essential book for parents. In The Invisible Toolbox, Kim weaves her practical anecdotal experience as an educator and parent into the hard research of recent findings in neuroscience. She reminds us that the first years of life are critical in the formation and receptivity of the primary predictor of success in school—language skills—and that infants begin learning immediately at birth. She also teaches and inspires us to build our own toolboxes so that we can help our children build theirs.

If you enjoyed books like Honey for a Child's Heart, The Read-Aloud Handbook, Screenwise, or The Enchanted Hour; you will love The Invisible Toolbox—from a 21st century Charlotte Mason.