CURRICULUM & LEARNING ENVIRONMENT * 1 HOUR * LEVEL 1-2Early Literacy for Infants and Toddlers
Literacy Development
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The early years are crucial in launching children's literacy development.
The early years in a child's life are profoundly important. The social, emotional, physical, linguistic, and cognitive experiences a child has during this time lay the foundation for a lifetime of learning. Literacy development begins well before formal schooling; indeed, it begins at birth as children begin to communicate through nonverbal gestures, learn and use language, are exposed to print and to the world, and build understandings of self and others. Experiences children have in their early years lay the groundwork for future learning. Early experiences have long-lasting effects and profoundly influence children’s trajectories as literacy learners. |
“To choose books for a baby or toddler, we need to know about what the child can do” . |
Language is the foundation of literacy.
Its development is fundamental to success in reading and writing. Experiences beginning in the first years of life that promote the acquisition of vocabulary, varied and complex sentence structures, and extended discourse are crucial; each of these plays an increasingly important role in long-term literacy development. Infants, toddlers, and preschoolers need thoughtful and rich exposure to and experiences with language by attentive and responsive adults. They need ample opportunities to engage with varied forms of language as they participate in conversations, read-alouds, and meaningful content experiences. Furthermore, children flourish when provided with opportunities to use language—saying, signing, or using touch screens—to tell, question, learn, think, and imagine. Language interactions throughout the day are essential for literacy development. They allow children to:
Especially important are opportunities to engage in extended conversations in which multiple conversational turns are taken. A critical role of adults is to thoughtfully interact with children, express interest in children’s verbalizations, and expand and elaborate on their language, adding details or more complex sentence structures to children’s verbalizations. Furthermore, adults should provide experiences and instruction that increase children’s vocabularies. |
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