Literacy learning begins at birth and continues throughout our lives. From infants’ curiosity for touching books to preschool children’s growing understanding that spoken words are represented by text on a page, young children are little literacy learners!

The goal of this book is to help educators support young children’s literacy learning in ways that make sense for their age and stage of development through learning opportunities for young children that build the foundation for reading and writing. It focuses specifically on the ways that early childhood educators can help to foster young children’s literacy development. The authors explain the latest research on supporting early literacy for infants, toddlers, and preschool children and how early childhood educators can implement these practices with young children.

The authors discuss five important areas for young children’s language and literacy development and highlight ten core practices of early childhood educators that support these five areas. The practices represent important ways that early childhood educators can ensure that they are supporting our little literacy learners.

Five Important Areas of Language and Literacy Development

1.Language and conceptual knowledge

2.Print concepts

3.Phonological awareness

4.Writing development

5.Listening comprehension and viewing comprehension

Ten Core Practices for Early Childhood Educators

1.Knowing. The authors build professional knowledge, such as why the letter W is so tough for young children or how children’s writing develop over time.

2.Designing. Offers examples of how early childhood educators can design learning opportunities to foster children’s literacy development.

3.Inviting & engaging. Suggested strategies for inviting and engaging children, such as materials to include in the classroom environment and techniques for maintaining children’s attention during read aloud.

4.Including. Discusses ways we can include children, whether by selecting texts for read alouds that reflect children’s cultural backgrounds or building on children’s interests when designing literacy-enriched dramatic play centers.

5.Explaining. Provides guidance about when and how to explain ideas to children, offering sample teacher language for readers to consider.

6.Showing. Illustrates how to model specific practices for children, from modeling for infants and toddlers how to handle a book to modeling for preschoolers how to compose text.

7.Playing. Discussions on how to use the power of play to support the aspect of literacy development featured in that chapter.

8.Transitioning. Discussions on how to use literacy activities to support transitions and how to use transition times to support literacy development.

9.Observing. Suggested foci for observation as well as informal assessment tools that can be used in that area.

10.Responding. Identifies specific ways to respond to children’s interactions with print, such as the extension and elaboration of oral language and the scaffolded writing technique for supporting children in rendering what they want to say in print.