1. Play card games with your child, and make cards available when his friends come over. Card games build many skills needed in math and science, such as sequencing, problem-solving, counting, categorizing, visual alertness, and discrimination.

2. Tape poems on the refrigerator and engage in "word play" like riddles and tongue twisters with your child.

3. Encourage lots of drawing these younger years. The best writers and readers are children who had many opportunities to draw, scribble, and create at home when they were young.

4. Help your child design a family tree. Talk about your family roots and traditions.

5. Have your child look at a framed picture on the wall for half a minute. Then have her close her eyes and tell you all the detail, features, and colors she can remember.

6. Give your child a daily responsibility to carry out.

7. To build vocabulary, write a "word of the day" on colored index cards. As your child learns the words, let him decorate or illustrate the cards and put them in a "Word Box".

8. Have your younger child gain a new audience for his reading aloud by enlisting his favorite teddy bear or stuffed animal. The story can even be tape-recorded for you to hear later.

9. Fold a long piece of paper into fourths and have your child draw an illustration for the beginning of a story, two for the middle, and one for the end. Let her share the story orally with you before writing it down.

10. Instead of doing your child's math problems or other homework, explain to him how to do it and he'll grow to be responsible and learn more.

11. Speak to your child in clear, complete sentences.