FAQ: What Books Should I Read to My One-Year-Old?

A friend recently sent me this question: What books do your recommend for 12-18 month-olds?

This is such a good question. The fact is, picking out books that appeal to your child at this stage is tricky!

Age 0-1 is The Easy Part

When babies are very young, in the first year or so, they are used to sitting still, cuddling, and listening to your voice -- it's all they do. So, when you read a book, it's a different variety on that same activity. It doesn't really matter what you read, because they are still developing the basic concept of books and reading and don't really follow the plot. Very young children can't even focus on the pictures yet! So, the important thing at this age is hearing the rhythms of your voice, hearing new vocabulary, and feeling close to you. In his first year, I read Will whatever I found interesting, including all my childhood favorites, a huge book of fairy tales, all the Winnie-the-Pooh books, an anthology of Greek and Roman myths, and even The New Yorker.  Sometimes he would get restless and we'd stop, but mostly he just listened. We got thousands and thousands of words in that year!

Make Way For Ducklings; Will at 4 weeks.

Winnie-the-Pooh; Will at 4 months

Age 1-2 is Much Trickier

By the time children turn one, however, things have changed. They are much more active at this age, walking, exploring, and manipulating all kinds of objects and toys, so sitting quietly is often not a big part of your routine anymore. At the same time, they haven not yet developed strong listening comprehension skills and long attention spans that will allow them to really follow and enjoy stories. As a result, I often hear from parents that their kids at this age "just don't really like reading." They've tried it, and it didn't go that well, so they give it a rest, planning to get back to it when their kids are older and can pay attention. Either that, or they read the same two or three books every night at bedtime, and it's a comforting routine, but it's not that much fun for kids or parents.

This reaction makes sense -- after all, kids will be better able to enjoy and appreciate books when they are older and have longer attention spans, right? Well, yes and no. The fact is, listening comprehension does require attention, but it is also a skill that your child builds over time. So, the more books you read now, the faster their attention spans for reading will develop.

Simply put, reading books prepares children to read more books.

So, my recommendation is to keep at it, even when the going gets tough. Here are a kinds of books that worked for us from age one to two:

Board books. We often think of board books as "baby's first books", but it was not until Will turned one that I really started to appreciate board books as an art form. A good board book has bright, clear, evocative illustrations and just a little text per page. Kids can participate in the reading experience by turning the pages, simultaneously developing their print concepts.

Will's absolute number one favorite at this age was Harry the Dirty Dog, by Gene Zion. We just happened to find this board book at TJ Maxx a few weeks before Will's first birthday, and it was a favorite for almost a year.  Here are a few pictures of the pages:

As you can see, the pictures are colorful, clear, and engaging, and there are only 1-3 sentences per page. This meant that Will didn't have time to get bored before it was time to turn the page and see another cool picture. It also meant that the story overall was relatively simple and easy to follow. 

There are two kinds of board books, the regular, small kind and the extra-large kind, known as "lap board books." I really love the lap board books because I felt like Will just got lost in them. 

However, they are kind of hard to find, so I recommend snapping them up wherever you come across them. I found most of ours at TJ Maxx or Homegoods.

At this age, Will also loved these board books*:

Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?

Madeline

Olivia

Hop on Pop

Chugga Chugga Choo Choo

Red Truck

Spot Goes to the Farm

Jabberwocky

I Am A Bunny

I should point out that not all of these are great works of literature! Some of them, like the Spot books, are pretty lame. But, Will liked it and as long as you're reading lots of books to your child, they don't all have to be Booker prize winners.

*Note: The Amazon links are not necessarily to the board book formats for these books. These are great books in any format, and you have to choose which format you want (board book, paperback, hardcover). Unfortunately, the board book version of Harry the Dirty Dog is currently out of print! You can buy a used one on Amazon, or you can get the regular picture book version. They may also have the board book at your library.

Funny books.  As well as telling an engaging story in relatively short pages, Harry the Dirty Dog is also quite funny! Most of the books Will loved at this age were funny (at least to him). A good board book or picture book will have both humorous text AND illustrations. Another huge favorite of Will's at this age was Dragons Love Tacos, a book with a funny tone, funny premise, funny plot, and very funny pictures. He loved that book so much it was the theme of his first birthday party AND his Halloween costume six months later:

He also loved this book called Moo Hoo. I hated that book, but we read it many, many times because it gave Will the giggles every time!  

Concept books. At this age, Will also enjoyed alphabet books, counting books, labeling books, and opposite books. These books usually only have one word per page, but they gave him plenty to think about as he developed his understanding of letters, numbers, words, and opposites. His favorites included: ABC, A Child's First Alphabet Book, Museum ABC, Hippopposites, Oliva's Opposites, Curious George's 1 to 10 and Back Again, and 123 New York: A Cool Counting Book, but we honestly read dozens and dozens of these. 

Really Big Books. We got Will this enormous Richard Scarry book for his first birthday, and it's one of the best purchases we've made. It was big and sturdy enough for him to be able to climb all over it and to see the details in these incredibly busy pictures. It provided an introduction to the Richard Scarry genre, which has become one of his favorites. It's also a nice hybrid, a half-narrative, half-labeling book. I also look for teacher's edition, big books on ebay.

Informational Books. We often think of kids' books as storybooks, but kids need more exposure to informational text (Duke, 2000; 2004), and it's never too early to start! Will really enjoyed this national geographic series of board books.

Other tips for reading with a one-year-old:

Offer Choices: Choice is a great motivator for young children. By age 1, I would let Will pick out his own books from the kids' section of the library. Some of these books he liked, some not, but he was willing to give them a chance when he picked them out. Similarly, I would let him pick between two or three books when we sat down to read, and he could do this at six months old, by touching the book he wanted.

Keep Trying: Between ages 1 and 2, the book Will liked the most was the book he had read the most times recently. The book he liked the least was the new book I thought he would like. The first time we read a new book, he almost always had a neutral or negative reaction. But, I would keep trying, and by the third or fourth time he generally started to like it and ask for it. I would also strategically introduce new books. For example, he would get to read an "extra" book before nap (one more than usual) if it was a new book we hadn't read before.

Look Forward to Age 2! Always keep in mind your end goal -- to develop your child's interest and love of reading in the long term. You may not love the same books as your child in this stage, or you may not get to read the great children's literature you always dreamed of reading to your child. I understand; Will would not get near Where the Wild Things Are until very recently. It's perfectly fine -- great even -- to read your child's favorite books, whatever they are, over and over and over and over and over. But I also encourage you to keep up the variety, introducing different kinds of books and even some longer picture books into the mix when you get a chance, and eventually your child will surprise you by asking for Frog and Toad stories. At two and half, Will regularly listens intently through long informational books about Paris, strange rambling poems, and Winnie-the-Pooh stories. He is always excited to get new books from the library and read them at home. It's a whole new world!

The Five Main Things We Do: #1 Talking With (Not Just To) Your Child

In my last post, I described the four main early literacy skills that children develop before they learn to read: oral language, phonological awareness, print concepts, and alphabet knowledge. This might sound a like a lot to teach your child, but in my house it really boils down to five main things. I'll be covering those five things in the next few posts, but to begin at the beginning:

1. Talking with (not just to) your children.  

Oral language is developed through conversations with you child. Every time you speak to your child, you are building oral language skills, even long before they are able to acknowledge your speech or respond.

For me, this started when I was pregnant. I talked to Will all the time. I would describe what I was doing and why, describe what I could see outside in the world that he could not, and talk about how much we were looking forward to meeting him. There is no evidence, that I'm aware of, that prenatal language exposure makes a difference to later literacy development (although there is some evidence that babies can recognize their parents' voices in the womb). But for me, I was trying to develop in myself the habit of talking to someone who couldn't respond -- yet. Because the more I talked to Will, the sooner I hoped he would start to respond. 

Hi Will. We are in Charleston, South Carolina.

Once children do begin to speak, you are in a position to provide them with something even more valuable than input; feedback. When Will first said, "Mama", I would say, "Yes, I am your Mama."  When he said, "I goed to the store," I said "Oh, I see, you went to the store." By affirming his efforts, letting him know I understand, and reflecting it back to him in other words, I try to expand his understanding of different ways he can communicate the same ideas.

Of course, parents talk to their children all the time. We especially issue directives ("put on your shoes"), affirmations ("good job"), and negations ("stop throwing your food"). These language interactions are necessary parts of parenthood, but they are not as productive as having real conversations with back and forth. Negations in particular tend to shut down lines of communication, so I try to limit the times I have to tell Will "no" or "stop it" (easier said than done, at two and half). Conversations allow kids to participate, receive feedback, and ensure that they understand. Back-and-forth conversations in which both adults and children have multiple turns provide children with the most opportunities for growth. Language is primarily a social skill, and is best learned through real social interactions. This is why television programs, videos, radio, or just listening to adults talk to one another do not provide as big a boost for children's language development. In fact, a recent study indicates that the background noise of having a TV on can prevent kids from hearing and participating in the language interactions that really count.

Now that Will is a bit older, I find that these back and forth interactions are often about playing along with his burgeoning imagination.  In the photo below, Will has decided that this little house on our playground is take out restaurant, where I can order anything I want. So, I order increasingly silly-sounding food: "Veal scallopini" and Will brings it out and says "Here is your veal scallopini! Is it delicious?" And I say, "It is scrumptious!" Will delights in these strange and silly-sounding words.

I'll have the salmon sashimi, please.

With Will, I've also noticed that it really helps him calm down and listen to me and participate in our conversation when I get physically down at his level to talk, eye to eye. In fact, when he is starting to get upset, he says "talk to me down here, Mommy." It's easy to sort of address him above his head, while I'm checking my e-mail on my phone or cooking dinner, but that's not really engaging him and doesn't help him build his language skills in the same way as a true one-on-one conversation.

I also try to use real grown up words and syntax, even fairly elaborate constructions, when I talk to Will. For example, one of our favorite games right now is "erroneous." I say, "The sky is green. Is that true, Will, or is that erroneous?" and he says "Erroneous!" The other day, he said, "Mommy, you are a tiger. No, that would be a erroneous."

Why Talking With Children Matters

Talking to your children helps them build knowledge of syntax, language pragmatics, and of course, vocabulary. The most famous study of this issue is the Hart and Risley's Meaningful Differences. Through home observations, they identified that children of professional parents hear almost 30 million more words over the course of their early childhood than children of less advantaged parents, and that these differences are reflected in later academic performance. 

This research has been critiqued, I think fairly, as being not culturally aware of differences among family practices and falling into the trap of blaming poor parents for the educational outcomes of their children as opposed to observing the structural factors at play. I agree with these critiques, but their work still spawned a whole line of research around language inputs, much of which confirms that early language inputs and vocabulary development are very important for children's future literacy.

There are two main reasons for this link between early vocabulary and later reading performance. The first is that vocabulary and language knowledge support later reading comprehension; it's hard to understand what you are reading if you don't know what the words mean or understand the syntax or figures of speech!

The second reason is that learning more words may help children develop phonological awareness. This theory is called the lexical restructuring hypothesis, and basically, the idea is that the more words a child knows, the more attuned he or she must be to the sounds in words in order to tell them apart. Phonological awareness is one of the most important foundational literacy skills, so this is a huge benefit. By the way, this applies to word in any language; in fact, bilingual or multilingual children often demonstrate higher levels of phonological awareness than monolingual children.

So, I hope what you will take away is that even if you never read a book to your child (which we will talk more about), you are still helping develop their future reading skills just by talking to them and with them as much as possible. In fact, my colleague and mentor Dr. Patricia Edwards developed a program for parents who cannot read themselves to help them support their children in early literacy development through conversations, stories, and songs called Talking Your Way Into Literacy. Children who are by nature quiet or shy or who begin talking late are also learning language by listening to and engaging with you. Look for opportunities to discuss, to use big and unfamiliar words, and to enjoy language together. You're already off to a great start.

Recommended reading: Thirty Million Words: Building a Child's Brain by Dana Suskind, MD

What is early literacy?

In my last post, I talked about the various ways we have conceptualized a child's entry to read over time. But how do we think about learning to read now?

We now understand a lot about what is happening before children learn to read -- and it's a LOT! We usually think of reading education as beginning in kindergarten or first grade, but in fact, traditional reading and writing behaviors are like the visible parts of a plant: they don't exist without an extensive network of roots underground. In fact, when you see the plant, you're seeing the culmination of something that has been developing underground for a long time.

So, what research has established over the last twenty years or so is what those roots are made up. These early skills and forms of knowledge lay the groundwork for later reading and without them, reading can't happen. These skills have been called "prereading" (Chall, 1983), "emergent literacy" (Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998), and now are commonly referred to as "early literacy" (National Early Literacy Panel, 2008). 

Early literacy includes all the things kids need to know before they start to read and write in conventional forms. As identified by the National Early Literay Panel, key early literacy skills include:

• Oral language: first and foremost, children need to learn to understand and speak their own language(s). This knowledge includes vocabulary, grammar, and pragmatics (how to communicate). Children need to develop both receptive vocabulary, which is words they can understand, and expressive vocabulary, which is words they can use themselves. Children start to develop this knowledge the first time you speak to them! This is why you hear about studies that identify the language exposure and vocabulary of very young children as important precursors of academic success. 
  
  

  

  This guy is still little, but his receptive vocabulary is "so big"!

• Phonological awareness: once children develop speaking knowledge of their own language, including lots of words, they need to develop an awareness of the sounds within words, or phonological awareness. It's one of the best predictors of learning to read (NELP, 2008).

• Print concepts: children need to learn how books and print work, including how books are organized, the direction that print travels across the page, even what a word is! (Flanigan, 2007).
  
• Alphabet knowledge: finally, children need to learn the uppercase and lowercase letters, how to form them in writing, and how they correspond to the sounds in words. This step represents the final bridge into reading and writing.

So, for various reasons you may decide you do or do not want to teach your child to read at home -- either way is fine. But in fact, you are already teaching your child to read, by providing the foundation for reading that they will build upon for the rest of their lives! When you enjoy speaking and singing with you child, or reading books, or playing with magnetic letters, or laughing at silly poems, you are teaching your child to read!

Should I Teach My Child to Read? -- The History

Tonight we're returning to the first parent FAQ I am addressing in this blog -- Should I teach my child to read?

As I mentioned in my previous post, this question goes back a long time, and I think it's important to understand how our thinking about when and how kids should learn to read has changed over time.

The "Mental Age" Theory

You don't have to "measure up" to read!

For a long time, we believed that reading was primarily a cognitive task, a function of IQ, and that children had to achieve a certain level of cognitive maturity, aka, "mental age," before they could learn to read (Gates, 1937), usually age six and a half:

For some time the problem of determining the optimum or necessary mental-age level at which reading can be successfully introduced has been under investigation. Recently statements have been made, in books written primarily for professional workers, which imply that this problem is fairly well solved. For example, Harrison states, "It has been found that in order to make any progress in reading a child must have attained a mental age of at least six years and that a mental age of six and one-half years more nearly insures success."

So, in this understanding, there was no reason to try to teach kids to read before they entered school, which at the time didn't begin until first grade; they just weren't smart enough yet!  On the flip side, as long as you were smart enough, you should be able to learn to read when the time came. At this time, reading ability and intelligence were often confused with one another.

We know now that very smart people can struggle with reading, but some of these ideas still persist. For example, one way we use to diagnose reading disabilities in schools is called the IQ discrepancy model. Under this model, a child is designated as reading disabled if the child is reading at a level significantly below what is typical for his or her IQ level. The implication of this model is that it's ok if you can't read, if you are also not "smart" as measured by traditional IQ tests!

However, we know now that reading is primarily a language task, not a measure of intelligence (Velluntino, Scanlon, & Lyon, 2000). A high IQ is not necessary for learning to read, and you don't have to wait for your child to get "smart" enough to read either.

The "Readiness" Model

This guy is ready for anything.

Eventually, it became clear that not all kids started reading naturally right at age six and half. So, instead, we moved to the thinking about reading "readiness". Under this theory, children needed to get "ready" to read by having a certain number of skills in place before reading instruction could begin (Smith & Chapel, 1970):

The time in a child's life when he becomes capable of reading involves a manifold readiness Gestalt. He must have reached readiness in four different aspects of growth; physiological, psychological (emotional and intellectual), educational and sociological (cultural and environmental).

So, under this model, you could do various things to make sure your child was "ready" to read at school entry including teaching him or her how books work and how to hold a pencil or crayon (e.g., "educational readiness"), but other factors, like your child's vision and hearing (physiological  readiness) just developed naturally (or  not).

Through this time, it was considered to be a bad idea to try to teach kids to read before they were "ready" and readiness was largely out of parents' control. Early readers were considered to be possibly at risk for confusion or struggle when they did get to school, as they had not been taught the fundamentals when they were "ready" to absorb them and in accordance with the most up-to-date pedagogy. Reading instruction did not begin until first grade, even after kindergarten became common.

Who Are Early Readers?  The Durkin Study (1966)

Even in this context, however, there were always kids like Scout Finch who learned to read before they were formally taught in school. In 1966, Dolores Durkin (1966) decided to actually study these kids! She studied almost 10,000 first graders in New York City and Oakland, California and identified that 1-3.5% of entering first graders were already reading before they had received any school instruction. She gave these children IQ tests, interviewed their families, and followed them longitudinally into the later grades. She found that:

• There were no IQ differences between early readers and later readers
• There were no bad longterm effects from learning to read early
• The main difference between early readers and later readers is that early readers had encouragement and help learning to read at home!

Her conclusion was that "Kindergarten programs should assist and encourage those children who wish to learn to read." —

Over time, it's become clear that another conclusion was equally important: parents and families can play a big role in helping children learn to read and there is no reason to avoid teaching your child to read if you and your child enjoy sharing books and literacy activities together. In future posts, we'll talk more about what research says about how reading develops and what this process looks like at my house.

It's not too early!

References:

Durkin, D. (1961). Children who read before grade one. The Reading Teacher, 14(3), 163-166.

Gates, A. I. (1937). The necessary mental age for beginning reading. The Elementary School Journal, 37(7), 497-508.

Smith, D. E., & Chapel, J. R. (1970). Reading Readiness. Reading Horizons,10(2), 3.

Vellutino, F. R., Scanlon, D. M., & Lyon, G. R. (2000). Differentiating Between Difficult-to-Remediate and Readily Remediated Poor Readers More Evidence Against the IQ-Achievement Discrepancy Definition of Reading Disability.Journal of Learning Disabilities, 33(3), 223-238.

Everyday Literacy: What It Looks Like for Us

In addition to answering parent FAQs about early literacy, I hope to use this space to show examples of how I engage with early literacy activities with my own son, Will, aged two and a half. Here he is:

I'm biased, but I think he's the best :). And I want the best for him.

Like a lot of you, I'm always looking for ways to grow and encourage his interest and skills when it comes to reading and writing. He loves books now, and I want to keep that spark alive and help him learn to read without struggle and turn him into a lifelong reader.  This should be easy, right? After all, I have a degree in this!

But, like all of you, I have competing priorities in my life. I work full time as a professor at Michigan State University, and my husband works full time as a lawyer.  We have a limited amount of time to spend with Will each day, and lots of competing priorities for that time. We want him to feel loved and secure most of all. We want him to be happy and develop self-reliance. We want him to get along with other kids and adults. We want him to get lots of exercise and eat healthy food. We want him to learn about math and music and science. We want him to play independently and develop his imagination. And eventually, we'd like to get him potty-trained.

So, we do what we can to support Will's language and literacy development and everything else that matters to us as his parents.

What this looks like to us is that we spend a certain amount of time every day engaging in language and literacy activities with Will. These activities are very low-key, child-led, and play-based. Some days we do a lot, and some days we do a little.

Here's what I don't do.  I don't sit down and "teach" Will specific lessons. I don't use educational shows or specific toys or apps. I don't have a curriculum. I don't have a chart where I keep track of how many books we read or give him rewards for completing activities or learning new things. I don't have any worksheets or flashcards.

Instead, my advantage as a professor of literacy is that I can recognize literacy opportunities in our daily activities and capitalize on them as they arise naturally. I'm also able to use what I know about early literacy development to provide the right level of support in these activities, so that Will and I don't get frustrated. And that's what I want to share with you all here, in a series of posts that I will title "Everyday Literacy."  I hope you will get new ideas for things to try out at home and, at the same time, take some pressure off yourselves and keep literacy fun for everyone.

My first tip is to build reading and writing activities into your daily routine. We don't look at our to do lists and check off "read with Will" or have a reminder pop up on our phones to "work on the alphabet." Actually, we 95% of the time, we don't initiate literacy activities at all. Instead, Will tells us when it's time to read, or write, or sing songs, or, in his words, "talk about the letters."

We built these routines up almost by accident, over time, by following Will's lead. If he wanted to read a "boo" (one of his first words) we tried to do it when he asked. If he wanted to play with "galk" (one-year-old speak for sidewalk chalk, as shown above), we went along with it. Over time, it became clear that he liked to do these things at certain times in the day and those activities became habits, which became routines.

Of course, his preferences and our schedules change over time, so these routines stay flexible. But I think the key thing for us was that I had a "soft spot" for literacy early on, so I was inclined to agree when he wanted to write and not when he wanted to eat cat food, to think of just one example. This allowed me to learn about about his interests and daily rhythms and for us to develop routines that keep us engaged in literacy without stress from day to day.

I'll talk about the specifics of our routines, as they stand now, over the next few posts, but it's more important to think about what will work for you and your kids. Think about when your children show the most interest in reading, writing, and language play, and when they seem to have the most energy for this kid of thing. For some kids, bedtime is a very sleepy time, so they can listen to stories but will not be inclined to engage with the books as much as they might be in the morning. For other kids, they need to jump on the bed for 20 minutes first thing in the morning and can't be bothered with sitting still.  Some kids love to ride in the car, while others could really use a book or song (or 20) to get a through a car commute. The important thing is to follow your child's lead about when and how they want to participate in these activities, and then say yes whenever you can. You're on your way to creating your literacy routine!

Should I teach my child to read?

"Should I teach my child to read?"

As a literacy educator, this is the question I get most of all from parents, so I thought we should start here. The second most common question is "how do I teach my child to read?" and we'll cover that question in detail too.

Parents who ask this question usually have a few specific, and often conflicting, concerns and motivations.

• They can tell that their kids are interested in learning to read.
• They want their kids to be ready for kindergarten and to do well under new standards.
• They want their kids to love reading and don't want them to feel pressure or negative feelings about reading.
• They don't know how to teach their kids to read and don't want to do it wrong.
• They have heard negative things about pushing academic skills too early and think they should focus on play, imagination, socio-emotional development, etc.
• They are not sure if their kids are ready.

First of all, if you have this question or concern, please know that you are NOT alone. Whether or not to teach reading at home has long been a fraught issue in American education. For evidence, just see this quote from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1963) about Scout's first day at school:

I suppose she chose me because she knew my name; as I read the alphabet a faint line appeared between her eyebrows, and after making me read most of My First Reader and the stock-market quotations from The Mobile Register aloud, she discovered that I was literate and looked at me with more than faint distaste. Miss Caroline told me to tell my father not to teach me any more, it would interfere with my reading.

  “Teach me?” I said in surprise. “He hasn’t taught me anything, Miss Caroline. Atticus ain’t got time to teach me anything,” I added, when Miss Caroline smiled and shook her head. “Why, he’s so tired at night he just sits in the living room and reads.”

  “If he didn’t teach you, who did?” Miss Caroline asked good-naturedly. “Somebody did. You weren’t born reading The Mobile Register.”

  “Jem says I was. He read in a book where I was a Bullfinch instead of a Finch. Jem says my name’s really Jean Louise Bullfinch, that I got swapped when I was born and I’m really a—”

  Miss Caroline apparently thought I was lying. “Let’s not let our imaginations run away with us, dear,” she said. “Now you tell your father not to teach you any more. It’s best to begin reading with a fresh mind. You tell him I’ll take over from here and try to undo the damage—”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Your father does not know how to teach. You can have a seat now.”

  I mumbled that I was sorry and retired meditating upon my crime. 

Sigh.

I think every parent has a scene like this one in the back of their heads when they debate when and how to teach their children to read, and for a long time, the dominant perspective was that, in fact, children could not and should not learn to read at home, or "too early" (Gates, 1937). Fortunately, we've learned a lot about early literacy and early reading in the past 8 decades! The short answer is that it's perfectly fine to teach your child to read and, in fact, you are most likely already teaching your child to read, even if you don't know it. I know, good news, right?

 The issue of what kind of instruction and support to offer your child is an individual question that depends on several factors that we'll discuss in more detail.  In my next few posts, I'll provide you some of the history of the ways we've thought about this issue, and begin to address the specific questions and concerns above. Stay tuned and happy reading!

What IS literacy, exactly?

Literacy is a term you are going to hear a lot as a parent. I find that it's a term that everyone uses, especially educators, but it means different things to different people. You may have heard the term used in phrases like "early literacy," "home literacy," "health literacy," "financial literacy," and "literacy skills." Do all these terms refer to the same concept?

Well yes! And no. Literacy is a large "umbrella term" which covers all the skills that a human being can use to communicate and make sense of our world. So while the traditional definition of literacy was the ability to read and write, the modern use of the term in education encompasses language AND literacy AND background knowledge: the ability to read, write, listen, speak, view, and more in multiple content areas. All of us are continually developing our language and literacy knowledge, not just children.

This definition encompasses literacy in specific content areas. For example, when we talk about financial literacy, we are talking about knowledge about how to make a budget, how to balance a checkbook, how to file taxes, and understanding of how interest works on things like credit cards, student loans, and mortgages, the difference between pretax and aftertax income, and the various vehicles out there for saving and investing money! Adults are continuing developing and refining their knowledge in the areas, as I did this summer when we bought our first home!

When we discuss young children, however, we usually talking about the skills that children need to develop before they learn to read. Learning to read is like an iceberg. You can see the reading happening, but a number of important skills are working below the surface to make that reading possible. This understanding -- that early skills pave the way for reading development -- is one of the most important breakthroughs in reading science in the past 20 years (Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998; Storch & Whitehurst, 2002)! Historically, these skills have been described as "prereading"  or "emergent" reading skills. Now, the term "early literacy" is generally used to describe all of the language, sound, and print knowledge that a child needs to develop before they start reading. So, even though my son is very young, he is engaging and developing his literacy skills every day.

This is early literacy:

And so is this:

And so is this:

And even this:

In future posts, I'll talk about each of the foundational early literacy skills in turn; what they look like, why they matter, and how we are working on developing them at home. Until then, happy reading!

References:

Whitehurst, G. J., & Lonigan, C. J. (1998). Child development and emergent literacy. Child development, 69(3), 848-872.

Storch, S. A., & Whitehurst, G. J. (2002). Oral language and code-related precursors to reading: evidence from a longitudinal structural model.Developmental psychology, 38(6), 934.

The Literacy Mama -- Who I am and Why I'm Writing

My name is Laura Tortorelli, and I have always loved reading. I still feel a shock of thrill and recognition when I come across one of my childhood favorites: I am a Bunny by Richard Scarry; Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel; anything Nancy Drew. I still remember the first, magical moment that I got "lost" in a book; it was the summer before second grade, and I brought my first Nancy Drew to the pool. While I waited for my sunscreen to sink in, I opened it up. The next thing I knew, my mom was telling me it was time to go home! Hours had passed and I had never stepped in the pool. 

As a adult, I still love to read, but I have also dedicated my life to figuring out how to give other children that first moment when it all "clicks"; how to hook on them on reading early and turn them into lifelong readers. In my 20s, I worked as a reading teacher and curriculum developer for reading curricula and then I returned to graduate school to get a Ph.D. in Reading Education from the the University of Virginia. I'm now an Assistant Professor of Elementary Grades Reading at Michigan State University.  To put it simply, I teach teachers how to teach kids to read and write, and I conduct research on how children develop into proficient readers.

However, I am also a mama! I have a son, Will, who turns two and a half this week. So, for the first time in my career, I get to watch this process unfold from infancy. It is a joy and privilege to watch him grow as a future reader, to talk to his teachers and other parents, and to try new things out in the comfort of my own home. 

And what I've found is that this period of time is confusing for parents -- even me! My parent friends experience a lot of anxiety about early literacy and how to help their children develop their reading skills before and during the early elementary years. How do I know which books to read to my child? Should I teach my child the alphabet? She knows the alphabet -- what should we do next? Do we need to teach sight words? Does my preschool focus enough on literacy? Or too much? How early can a child learn to read?

I'm starting this blog so I can collect and answer these questions all in one place, based on my professional research and personal experiences as a teacher and a mama. I will post about what the research says about early literacy, answer parent FAQ, and share activities and routines that our family have developed at home and let you know what works -- and what doesn't for us. 

I'm looking forward to sharing this journey with all of you!