VESL for
Child Development
Module 4, Lesson 1
Question : What is a good age to begin reading to children? Unfold
Answer: From birth!
Exposure to reading at a young age starts a child on the path to learning experiences that will help them succeed in school with higher grades, increased likelihood of graduation, and better outcomes in adulthood.
Objectives
1. Learn career specific vocabulary
2. Identify main ideas in a video presentation and take notes
3. Apply academic terms appropriately to summarize the benefits of reading to infants and toddlers
4. Recognize reading strategies appropriate for infants and toddlers
A. Study and learn terms related to early literacy.
You are going to watch two videos about early literacy. Study some key words that you will hear in those videos.
B. Watch and listen to identify the main ideas in a video presentation about early literacy.
Get ready to listen.
1. Copy the chart in your notebook.
2. Think about the words in the left column.
- What do they mean?
- What do you think you will hear in the video about these topics?
Watch and listen 2 or 3 times.
3. Listen for the key concepts in the chart.
4. Write notes.
- Use words from the vocabulary lesson when appropriate.
Transcript
Transcript for Babies, Toddlers, and Early Reading
School readiness begins with birth. That's right. Babies begin to learn the skills they need for reading and writing from the everyday interactions they have with the trusted adults in their lives. Looking at your newborn while talking, having conversations with your older infant, singing with your toddler or even coloring helps prepare your child for success. As a parent, there are many simple things you can do to promote early literacy with your child.
When we think about promoting early literacy, we're really thinking about a suite of skills. We're thinking about language development of course so understanding the meaning of the words that you're saying as you tell the story or read the book. But we're also talking about the skill of print awareness. So, realizing that the print on the page actually is what you're saying. And we can help children learn this by pointing to the words as we read them. We also can point out words on community signs and on the signs that we see on the street.
The more you can make reading books part of every day, the greater the likelihood your child will develop into a great reader. Remember, reading should be fun. It's okay if your child wants to stop reading even in the middle of a story.
For the parent who says that their child is disinterested in reading, won't sit down, won’t sit still while they're being read to, I would say, “That's okay.” That's okay because actually your child may very well be practicing a very important skill for learning to read which is simply exploring the book. Mouthing it, banging it, turning it over, all of those are important book handling skills which research shares is actually very important to learning how to read and write, learning the function of a book. So following your child's lead is important.
You can help make the experience more engaging by asking your child questions and pausing to let your child ask questions too. If the story talks about a pet, ask your child about your own pets. Help make the story personal. Don't feel like you have to read the story word for word, especially with a younger child. It may be more fun to talk or sing about the pictures.
The other thing is to model it. You yourself as parents can model literacy by reading books, by having your children see you read and enjoy reading. The other thing about how parent strategies parents can use to support early literacy is exposing their children to lots of books, lots of songs, lots of language, pointing out signs, using and repeating those experiences.
Language, reading and writing skills all develop at the same time. By understanding the importance of early literacy and its developmental process, you can help your child's ability to read and succeed later when they are school-aged. To learn more about early literacy, visit the zero to three website, and follow the links to early language and literacy.
C. Check your understanding with the quiz.
D. Watch and listen to learn strategies for reading with toddlers.
Copy the list of strategies in your notebook. Check off each strategy as you see it modeled in the video. What does the teacher do for each strategy?
Strategies:
_____ Repetition
_____ Pointing
_____ Labeling
_____ Increased Prosody
_____ Signs & Gestures
_____ Simple Directions
_____ Pretend Play
Note:
You can stop watching after you have seen all of the strategies. (9:44)
Or, you might enjoy watching the whole video presentation.
Transcript
Okay. So, when I start reading this book, I look at the pictures, and I say ooooh, “Where's baby?” baby, baby. Aww baby. And then I'll take the child's hand, and I'll go, “Chugga-chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga-chugga. Choo-choo! - Where's choo-choo? Ah choo-choo.” And for the bear, I always like to do bear “roar”, bear “roar” and repeat that. And the kids sometimes will do that with their hands. They'll point and even if they don't say it, they're still soaking that in. And for the duck, I do this motion, “quack quack quack quack quack. Sometimes for the baby I'll do, “Baby waa, waa” so you're incorporating some signs and gestures along with the word so that they're pairing together the visual elements along with the auditory elements. So, then we open the book, and I love how they do this on the first page because it allows for a ton of repetition. So, don't skip over this first page just because you think it's a filler page. This one is so fun because you can really use repetition to introduce an early developing word such as duck or eye or beak or water. So, what I like to do is I like to take their little hand, and I have them point. I get their pointer finger up and shape their hand so that they're pointing. And I'll go --duck --duck --duck --duck –duck --duck --duck --duck --duck –duck --duck --duck --duck --duck --duck--duck --duck –duck. So, I'm taking a deep breath in between each thing, and the kids think it's hilarious. And then once we get to the bottom, I start to say duck duck and then I pause, and I wait to see if they'll repeat it. So, then we go to the next page. And what I like to do is I like to have them tap to turn the page along with the words, “Turn page.” So sometimes you know kids just want to flip and flip and flip and that's when pages rip, and it’s crazy, and they just want to flip to the end. So what I do is, I block it and I do, “Turn page.” And I do it in that kind of sing-songy voice, and so, even if they don't say that and repeat “turn page” sometimes they’ll say, “turn” sometimes they’ll just pat, and that lets me know that they want to go to the next page. Now this is an intro page so then this allows for some repetition bear “roar”. This is a good chance where you can say, “Oooh, eyes, nose. Can you tickle the bear’s feet?” And you can tickle. tickle. tickle. So then, we get to this page, and sometimes we'll do star and heart. And then sometimes I'll be like, “Where's baby?”, and there's a little tiny baby face right there and at the bottom. So that's helping them to look and scan. And sometimes I'll point with my finger, “Where's baby?” so they can see the area that it's in. And then we do “turn page”. This is another page that allows for a lot of repetition. So, what I like to do is they're normally pretty engaged because they're looking at the baby's eyes and all of these babies over here, and so I'm kind of like with the ducks. I'll do baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, all the way to the bottom. And then a lot of times we'll talk about the baby's tongue right here. I don't know if you can see baby, and then I stick out my tongue go, “labulabulabulabulabul Where's your tongue?” And then we point to the baby's tongue. Then we always look for who has the glasses. “Where are the glasses?” “Do you see the glasses?” “Where are the glasses?” And you kind of can circle around where they are and then point. So, your finger is something that's going to draw your child's eye to what you're looking at. And so, in order to give them kind of a clue, but not point it out directly, you can say “Where are the glasses?” and point to three to focus on, or “Where are the glasses?” and then help them to point. Something we talk about is this baby is eating a banana. and so we talk about eating. Then I like to pretend like we're smelling the baby's diaper, and it's stinky. “Shoo wee!” So, we go, pee should we smell the diaper “Shoo wee!” and they get a kick out of that. So, then we turn page. This page is full of things that we do. This is great for action words and verbs, but you can also use it to give simple directions to your child that they can follow. So, I'll start with whatever the child is looking at first. Whatever I can see them looking at, we’ll talk about. So, if they're looking at the drum, I'll be like ooh drum, and I'll be like, “boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.” All that repetition - drum, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And they like to pat on the drum. Or, you could say pat, pat, pat, pat. Those are some early developing words that they'd be able to imitate most likely. And then eating,” Oooh apple, crunchy.” And so, you can do the sign for eat, and you can point to the picture of the apple and then kicking a ball. So, lots of kids know the word for ball already, and so you can point to the ball and be like, “Oooh can you kick- kick your feet? Kick your feet.” And then if they're sitting on your lap, if they're not kicking their feet yet, or following your direction, you can take their little feet and kick them back and forth and go oh he's kicking the ball. And then again, for this baby at the bottom, we always smell the diaper, and they think it's hilarious. So, you go, “P.U. P.U.” And sometimes when we've done this book enough, the kids will go straight for this one and start smelling the diapers. It's adorable. Then for this guy over here, he's stretching up in the air, and so I always say, “Can you high-five the boy? Give him a high-five.” So, we high-five his hand right here- high-five. And then I like to ask him to tickle the boy's belly. “Tickle his belly. “Tickle, tickle, tickle. Tickle his feet. Tickle, tickle. Tickle his hand.” And then we can look for the baby's hair, the baby's eyes, the baby's hands, the baby's shoes. There's all kinds of things that you can look at here. So then, we turn page. This page is great because it's all about a daily routine around eating, and so it's adorable. Some kids that I work with have tried to pick up these forks and spoons before thinking that they were 3d. So, we talk about the vocabulary in here. And something that I like to do is I like to label it for the kids if they don't know the words yet. Instead of saying, “What's that?” “What's that?” “What's that?” “What's that?” “What's that?” “What's that?” “What's that?” That gets really overwhelming to a child. So, when you're reading, try to avoid saying, “What's that?” “What's that?” “What's that?” and instead giving your child some simple directions to follow. Like, “Oooh can you drink from the cup? Ahh, mmm delicious.” And they'll likely imitate that “Ahh” sound after you. And then you can go, “Oooh. Let's get the spoon and eat in the bowl.” and pretend like you're eating from the bowl. And then you can talk about the babies drinking, and you can point to the baby's eyes, ears, fingers, and you can talk about the vocabulary or the sign for milk. Sometimes, kids will see this and think it's juice. So, you can talk about that. Then you turn page. (9:44)
