The Reading Brain Part 3

Research Associates and Developmental Therapist Kayla O'Neill talks to Research Associate, Developmental Therapist, and former preschool teacher Lynne Hall about different was to enhance reading and language development in toddlers, the pre-reading and writing stages for ages two to four. 

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Welcome to the Early Childhood On The Go podcast. I'm your host, Kayla O'Neill, and today we're exploring literacy development in toddlers, the pre-reading and writing stages for ages two to four. And with me is my friend and colleague, Lynn Hall. She's a research associate at the Early Childhood Center. Lynn, so glad that you're here. Thanks, Kayla. I love the pre-reading and writing stage. Toddlers are so curious, and everything they do lays their groundwork for learning and reading and writing. All right, so let's start big. What shifts as kids move from that emergent stage into this pre-reading and writing phase? Well, from birth to two, kids are mostly babbling, pointing at pictures, and recognizing voices. By two to four, things look a lot different. They start enjoying storybooks and even love talking about them. So they're kind are ready to dive into the books. Yeah, exactly. They learn to handle books, turning the pages one at a time. They might even read by retelling the story using pictures. That's so cute. Do they recognize symbols yet? Yeah, they'll start to notice logos, stop signs, even labels on packages, you know, for those favorite foods and things. They'll hold the books right side up and they'll pretend to read to their toys. All of that is print awareness. What about language at this stage? Language during this stage really takes off. Children move from single words into full phrases and even simple sentences. They can start to recognize and even generate some rhymes, and some of the children even get excited about naming letters. So at two to three years old, they're already getting into the letters? Yeah, sometimes. And a few of them are even trying to write their name, usually just with scribbles, but understanding that those scribbles mean something. They matter. They're symbols of their ideas. Meanwhile, their brain is still pruning those unused pathways and strengthening the ones they use the most. So the brain is becoming more efficient for language and literacy. How can parents encourage this engagement with print? One of the primary things families can do is surround their children with books and print in their daily life. We talked about this a little bit in our last podcast, putting those books where they can reach them. We talked about having them in the family room, reading during bath time, even putting some in the car, right? And possibly labeling objects around the house, even signs and magazines count. How about just reading out loud? Reading aloud is essential. Reading aloud every day. Choose books that are patterned and predictable with the stories. And kids just love to chime in kind of when they know what's going to happen next. And then point to the words as you're reading, underline sentences with your finger, talk about the author, the title, and the pictures. So it's not just about reading to them, it's more reading with them. That's really well put, Kayla. It's that interaction, it's enjoying books and reading together, making it an interactive experience. Asking things like, what do you think will happen next? invites children to guess or finish a phrase and this builds comprehension and confidence especially when we're talking about a book we've looked at a few times how about writing skills so we want to give our toddlers crayons and paper and remembering that they're still building their small muscles and a lot of times when they're drawing they're going to be using their whole arm so if we can give them big paper so they can make those larger movements and really enjoy the writing process all of this scribbling is going to lead to them eventually making shapes and then letters it's real practice for expressing their ideas and building the motor skills they need to write letters later shared reading and scribbling together build children's phonological skills and their vocabulary at this stage so I think one thing that's on everybody's mind. And like when I think about reading from when I was a kid to reading now is the jump in technology that we've had. We have digital books now, audio books. Can these help and how do parents use them? I'd say it's all about moderation. And for this age, especially print is better. Screens can be really distracting and printed books invite more of a conversation and interaction with the adult in their lives than when we're looking at something on a screen. Got it. So let's talk about play. How does play connect to literacy? Well, play is really the gateway. You want to be able to set up a library corner with books and stuffed animals. Kids love pretending to read. And during my years as a preschool teacher, we used to talk about that there's more than one way to read a book. So reading the words is one way to read a book. but looking at the pictures and talking about the pictures is another way to read a book and then as our kids got a little bit older in preschool we used to play this game called letter detectives where they'd have a little magnifying glass and and look for different letters in the book which you can do the same thing with vocabulary words looking for different pictures so helping children understand that reading those words that they'll do later is just one way to read a book, but they're already readers. I love that idea of magnifying glass. That is so fun. How about like rhyming games? Rhyming games are perfect. So clapping the syllables and words while you're playing with maybe some blocks or something or singing rhyming songs. It's so playful and it really supports these young early readers and writers phonemic awareness skills. Any sensory play ideas? Oh yeah, lots of sensory play ideas. So hiding foam letters in the sand for a treasure hunt. You can roll Play-Doh into letters. Even simple puppets give children an opportunity to kind of retell stories and boost their narrative skills. Something else I used to like to do is just putting objects in different sensory materials like the sand or a table or a pebble table or even in the water and then as they're finding those things kind of talking about if the two objects maybe do have that same sound at the end or maybe they begin with the same sound something to keep in mind as we're really talking about that when we start getting into phonetic awareness is that at these stages we really want to focus on the sounds that letters make rather than children's ability to name those letters that's going to come but what we want to do is help them be able to recognize those different sounds of letters. So I really like to focus on the objects and the sounds they start with at this stage. So play really just makes that literacy feel natural and fun is what you're saying. Yes, exactly. Natural, fun. And when kids lead, it feels more joyful. The learning sticks because it's meaningful to them, right? Right. But I have to be honest, not every child engages right away. I had one of my little ones, I mean, they loved books from the newborn stage, but I had another one that it was harder to get them to sit and read with me. So what other challenges do parents see? Yeah. So what you're describing really speaks a lot to attention spans, which can really vary at this age and children's interests are kind of all over the place, right? Looking at books might last five minutes before their interest wanes and they want to do something else. Not only is that normal, we really want to respect that and follow the child's lead. We never want these experiences to feel forced and like it's something they have to do. It can be disappointing, right? If I set up this really cool activity, I've got my sand with my objects in it and we're getting in there and I've done all this work and then my child doesn't want to do it anymore. Or, you know, I've gone to the effort of picking out some really cool new let's say lift and flat books and my kid wants no part of them it can be disappointing but reintroducing those things I used to like with my uh my middle son he was one of those that had a really short attention span for my different literacy activities so I would get things out when he was in the high chair right so I would eat quickly so when he was done eating I might put that sensory tub right there on the high chair or I may get those books out when he's in the bathtub, like times when he's already kind of captive to introduce them more frequently. And that seemed to be super helpful. So what tips do you have for how parents should respond in this situation? Yeah. So again, like I said, following your child's lead. Don't feel like if they're not super interested right now, they're never going to be. That exposure is really important. Keeping those interactions short and engaging. And modeling can be a really good way to inspire our toddlers because they're wanting to do things that their older siblings do. They're wanting to do things that their parents are doing. So if we're modeling looking at books, it's going to pique their interest. Or if we're playing in that activity and really emphasizing how much fun it is, you'd be surprised how quickly they want to see what they're missing out on. And when we think about that engagement, books with flaps and textures and all kinds of surprises can really pique that interest as well. So what about kids who just resist reading? Yeah, sometimes that happens. It's just not what they're interested in at that time. Find ways to integrate literacy and books into what they already love. So if the child loves cars and signs and labels, put the, or if they love the cars, add the signs and labels to their toy garages or to their little, if they love dinosaurs, right? So putting words around their little dinosaur sets up. Anything that you can do to add books, letters, all of those literacy things to things they're already enjoying can be helpful. What if they have a language delay? Any tips for that? So when we think about language today, we want to watch to see if children during this stage are having trouble recognizing when words sound the same at the end. So they're not really able to hear that they sound the same. Maybe they have a super limited vocabulary. So we're really watching for those things. And early intervention really does matter. So if we're recognizing these types of concerns, we want to play some phonics games, maybe even reaching out for an evaluation or an assessment to get some professional support might be warranted. How about multilingual homes? So when children are in a multilingual home, what the research tells us, Kayla, is that children that are multilingual actually pick up both languages more easily, which kind of, to me, always sounded counterintuitive. How can we learn both easily if, you know, if we're learning both at the same time, but that's what the research is showing us, that children really do have that flexibility with their brains. So we want to celebrate all languages. Then, you know, what we call translanguaging, going back and forth between both languages is completely normal, and you want to be able to include bilingual books whenever possible when you have a multilingual home. This is going to strengthen their literacy skills across domains. That's great information. And what I'm hearing is really across the board, we're looking for consistency with reading and just having patience with it. You are exactly right. Challenges can turn into opportunities when we provide children the right support. All right. So let's wrap up. What are your top tips for parents of two to four-year-olds? you've heard me say this before, Kayla, but read daily. Lots of times we think we're doing this more frequently than we actually are. So being intentional about it, even having a specific time of day like that bedtime story is really important. Making it interactive with questions and predictions, books that are interactive with lifting the flaps, all those kinds of things. Point out print in your daily life, all of those signs that they're seeing, menus at restaurants, make a handwritten grocery list again, make it a scavenger hunt and giving them materials to really work on those writing muscles for scribbling and pretend writing. And just keep it fun, right? Absolutely. That's probably the number one thing to remember. You want these experiences to be joyful and playful, and that way they're going to build children's confidence and create lifelong readers. That's such great advice, Lynn. Thank you so much for taking time to share all this information with us today. Of course. Thanks for having me, Kayla. As always, my pleasure. That's our episode of Early Childhood on the Go. Thank you for listening and don't forget to subscribe and share.