Encouraging Literacy in Young Children

An Interview with Ali Spickler

Most preschoolers can't read. What are things that parents can do to encourage literacy at this age?

The most effective way to foster early literacy, as with any early learning, is to tie your child's learning in with their interests. If your three-year-old is fascinated with Thomas the Tank Engine, read lots of Thomas books. If your child is sad about your going to work in the mornings, create a book about things you do when "Mommy Comes Back From Work" to read after breakfast, or to bring to preschool for circle time.

Children love to hear their own words read back to them. You can play games with trains, dolls or blocks where your child makes up the rules and you write those rules down on a big chart. Keep note pads and pencils in each room and out doors. Then, write down quotes and interesting anecdotes from your child's play that day, and then read through a few at bedtime. This way your child will see that you not only value reading and writing, you value their ideas and learning.

Simple cooking projects where you draw a picture of the food next to the written words on large recipe cards will definitely peak your child's interest. You can also take pictures of them with toys that they love, and make clean up charts with simple rules (they can dictate some of this with you) that you place around their room for clean up time. This helps them connect function, consistency and a sense of self around written words.

Do you think it's important to try to get children to read at younger ages?

The most important ingredient in any child's ability to learn to read or write is the belief in them self as a good learner. Keeping this in mind, it is important to note that young children do not develop the physical capacity to focus their eyes on small words for sustainable periods of time until around age 7. Hand-eye coordination is also still developing, as are the abilities to stay still for sustainable periods of time and have impulse control. Asking young children to read puts them in situations that they are not physically ready for, and we run the risk of damaging their self-esteem.

Young children do have the capacity, however, to begin to value reading and writing, to enjoy reading and writing with assistance from adults, and to see how we function with literacy in our world. When we find creative ways to promote those concepts at home and at school, children thrive in literacy when they are old enough to begin practicing new skills.

If your child is asking you how to spell words, what a letter sounds like, or how to read something, it is a good idea to share your knowledge with them. But, rather than push more concepts on them, simply encourage their curiosity. Let them know how excited you are about what they do know and what they are interested in and then wait for them to ask for more information. And they will!

What role do books play in the preschool environment?

Books are instrumental in every stage of early learning. For young toddlers, picture books provide an opportunity to learn new concepts, hear new words and have close, connected time with loved ones. For older toddlers, books can have more complex labels, and offer opportunities to compare and contrast, as well as promote important values. Books for 4 and 5 year-olds can introduce intricate conflict and resolution ideas, pose theories that give children the chance to reflect on their own resolution ideas, and provide an opportunity to stir creativity and imagination.

Books also give children a window into the larger world around them. They can develop warm and wonderful first experiences with people of diverse cultures, ethnicities, abilities, ages, family structures, lifestyles, etc, through the books we have at school and at home.

It is important for us to look at the books in our children's environments, at home and at school, similar to the way we look at their nutrition. Often times, books for children are filled with a lot of fancy flash, jokes aimed at adults, or are simply commercializing products or movies. These books are like chocolate - good for once and a while, but not meant to be the main source of your child's literary diet. Home and school libraries that lean more toward books with rich artwork, beautiful photography, and with the type of content that matters to you most will be the ones that nurture your child and help them develop wonderful early learning experiences that last through their lives.

The Reading Family

An Interview with Gay Lombard
Children's book buyer for Bookshop Santa Cruz

What do you think is the key to instilling the love of books in a child?

I think it's probably an adult loving books. So then you read to a child the age-appropriate books for an infant. The reason that the Mother Goose line has always been popular is because of the rhyme and the ambiguity. Because there is a mystery in words and I think that rhymes themselves are something that a very young child can hear. You're not only hearing the meaning, you're hearing the sound of the language. And you're also hearing an adult speaking it with joy.

What is your advice for parents of older children who say they don't like to read?

There's all sorts of different ways that kids acquire knowledge. It's important not to belittle the other ways that you acquire knowledge. Usually there is a book that will reach a child. When people ask me I ask a lot about the kid's interests, if there was ever a book that workedŠall of those are clues as to why a child will like a particular book. The more clues an adult gives me the closer I can get to the target.

I've had kids say, "this is the only good book I've ever read." Then they have the same reluctance the next time around. I know kids who never read until they were much older and a certain book would just do it.

What do families with children who are enthusiastic readers have in common?

Usually when it's done as a whole family activity. Both parents get involved or if it's a single parent family -- it doesn't matter what the family configuration is. We get all sorts of families at Bookshop! If you have reading as an activity that everyone does together that the adults value -- not just for the kids but they value it for themselves -- you can tell that. One of the things that happens is they come back for a book like the last one. For example, they've gone on a camping trip together and this is a book that everyone read aloud. Usually when it's a whole family activity, it's even merrier.

Is any reading good for a child, or do you think the quality of the books matters?

I think a child should choose their own books -- we all read garbage occasionally and there's nothing nicer than taking a book that isn't a gorgeous piece of literature into a bathtub and whiling away an hour or two. I do think it's important to have a mixture of books in your life.

Read the article in Growing Up in Santa Cruz

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