Treehouse Children’s Museum is all about “stepping into a story” and encouraging children and adults to share good stories from around the globe. From our story-based exhibits to our theater and arts-based programming, Treehouse supports the importance of reading and vocabulary development through playful interactions. The mission of Treehouse is especially critical right now as childhood is increasingly contracting and children’s play is largely supervised sports. Treehouse is a place that supports learning through child-directed play and through collaborative play as children retell stories and create their own – essential skills for becoming successful readers.

We know that developing reading skills in the preschool and early elementary years is vital. Research shows that if children are not proficient readers by the time they are in third grade, they are four times more likely to drop out of high school. Children who start Kindergarten without basic pre reading skills are less confident and comfortable and that effects their ability to learn new things and succeed in school.

The Treehouse staff and Board of Trustees love finding and sharing new, useful literacy tools with parents and educators. We were recently contacted about a Harvard Graduate School of Education slideshow for parents of K through 12 students. It takes just a few moments to watch the slide show and it offers good strategies for supporting children’s literacy development and provides helpful benchmarks for where a child should be with regard to reading skills.