Episode 60: How Early Literacy Can Shape Your Child's Learning Journey

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Foreign welcome to another episode of K12 Education Untangled. My name is Dr. Kim Fields, former corporate manager turned educational researcher and advocate, and I'm the host of this podcast. I got into this space after dealing with some frustrating interactions with school educators and administrators, as well as experiencing the microdiscriminations that I faced as an African American mom raising my two kids who were in the public school system. I really wanted to understand how teachers were trained and what the research provided about the challenges of the public education system. Once I gained the information and the insights that I needed, I was then equipped to be able to successfully support my children in their educational progress. If you're looking to find out more about current information and issues in education that could affect you or your children, then you're in the right place. Thanks for tuning in today. I know that staying informed about K12 education trends and topics is important to you, so keep listening. On today's episode, I'll be discussing the importance of reading and early childhood literacy. Early literacy is comprised of the knowledge about reading, writing, and learning before elementary school. It's a key factor to determine school readiness. Early childhood education is for children from ages 3 to 6 years old. Providing the skills necessary to develop this knowledge is crucial to academic success from early childhood through adulthood. Consistent positive reinforcement in the learning to read process gives children encouragement to keep reading and stay engaged with their reading, writing, and other literacy skills. Let's get started. The learning goals of early childhood education, which are described as knowledge and print ideas, concepts and vocabulary skills, which include small and quick units of action disposition, which is a response to a particular circumstance and feelings. Early literacy skills include vocabulary, letter knowledge, phonics awareness, sentence awareness, and narrative skills. There's a strong correlation between phonics awareness and word or sentence awareness. The relationship of these skills to one another is critical in ensuring that children gain all the necessary skills and awareness that they will need to become effective readers and writers. Reading proficiency is critical to the effective development of academic and social aptitude throughout the child's life and learning career. Early literacy often begins with the child's initial and robust exposure to vocabulary. Therefore, reading success is often tied to adequate language exposure during the early developmental stages for children so that when they enter the classroom, they have sufficiently developed the skills that are necessary in order to succeed in reading. When toddlers are exposed to who, what, when, where, and why questioning, they were more responsive and their replies were considerably more complex than their responses to other types of questions. This has been reinforced in the research that literacy skills developed during the early years provide the foundational elements that are required for learning to read later in the child's academic career. Pre reading skills such as oral language, listening comprehension, phonics awareness, and Alphabet knowledge all play a role in providing a foundation for literacy competence as well as contributes to future academic success. Children who were at a lower pre reading and reading competency in preschool were likely to continue progressing at that slower rate than their peers into their childhood. Additionally, there seems to be research that suggests that there are disparities between children who have and have not attended preschool. Children between the ages of 3 to 6 years old who had parents or guardians that read to them demonstrated higher levels of empathy and an ability to understand and and accept that others may think and behave differently than themselves. Early writing skills are foundational skills related to young children's literacy development and later reading and writing achievement. Children who are considered at risk for later literacy difficulties lag behind their peers in a number of early writing skills, including name writing, letter writing, spelling, and story composition. In preschool, literacy difficulties begin prior to kindergarten and impact academic success throughout school. Children with literacy challenges are more likely to be referred to special education. They also suffer from expulsion or truancy and tend to drop out of school more than their peers who don't have these challenges as adults. These children have reduced employment opportunities, increased health risk, and are more likely to become involved with the criminal justice system. In elementary school, children who struggle with reading also struggle with writing, and writing challenges are the second most common reason for referral to school psychologists after reading problems. According to the national center for educational statistics, in 2012, about 72% of fourth grade students did not achieve the proficient level in writing examinations, and these outcomes persist into the 8th and 12th grades. Children's writings, when they first start kindergarten, predicts literacy skills such as decoding, spelling, and reading comprehension in the first grade, spelling in the second grade, and writing in the third grade. There is a correlation between children's early writing and early reading processes. The act of writing fosters a child's understanding of letter sound correspondence as the child's knowledge of Alphabet grows as early as 2 years of age, many children begin to understand that the marks that they make represent meaning, and they use several forms of early writing such as drawing, scribbles, and letter like forms to record their ideas. Names are often the first form of writing for many children, and by the end of preschool, most children can write their name. Children who are considered at risk for literacy difficulties lag behind their peers in several early writing skills. They score lower in name writing, letter writing, spelling, and story composition. Children considered at risk typically use drawing, scribble writing, and letter like shapes, whereas their peers use more letter like formations or or actual letters when prompted to write their names. Individual letters or CVC Words CVC words are consonant vowel consonant words that children who are learning how to read use as sight words. These words include examples like top, cat, big, etc. Children who enter kindergarten with less developed writing writing skills tend to struggle with writing well into elementary school. Young children who are at risk for literacy difficulties tend to struggle with emergent literacy skills such as phonics awareness and Alphabet knowledge, and they continue to struggle with such skills that are necessary for reading success as they matriculate into elementary grades. It's worth noting that early writing is related to early literacy skills skills such as letter knowledge, letter sound knowledge, and word recognition. So it's not surprising that children who struggle in these literacy skills also struggle with writing. Another finding from a 2020 study was that most children, regardless of the socioeconomic status of their family, experience fewer home opportunities to support their early writing skills. Further versus reading skills prior to entering preschool. A growing body of research has demonstrated that writing is rarely supported in early childhood classrooms when compared to reading. This is unfortunate because many times school children struggle to understand the relationship between their oral language and print as well. They fail to understand that printed words carry meaning and and that those words can be captured in print is foundational to all writing tasks. Phonics is a skill that focuses on listening to words and hearing and sounding them out. By doing so, young children learn the rhythm and sounds of language. When the rhythm is recognized, children can then break sentences into words and words into syllables. Surprisingly, music improves phonic awareness. Songs prepare young children for the language that they will come across in real life. Children's songs, which are usually short and repetitive with processable tools and melodies. These are crucial early literacy skills for young children to improve for success in later academic life. Songs can be used to practice and reinforce consonants. Songs like Mary had a little Lamb, which has a repetitive l, or Row, row, row your boat, which has a competitive r sound, provide young children with the chance to practice certain sounds. Nursery rhymes are another tool to teach phonics awareness. Most educators believe that the single most important, important activity that a child can do during the summer that's related to learning is to read for pleasure. That's because research as early as the 1970s concluded that reading was the only activity that strongly and consistently relates to summer learning. Educational researchers have declared that a lack of access to books during the summer break could could translate to a two month loss in reading achievement for children from low income families. Given these facts, the reality is that children are reading for pleasure much less than they have been in the past decades. In 2020, the National Assessment of Educational Progress asked US kids ages 9 and 13 whether they read for fun almost every day and 42% of the 9 year olds said they read almost daily for Fun compared to 53% in 2012. And only 17% of the 13 year olds said they read almost daily for fun compared to 27% in 2012. These findings are revealed just as students performance on National Reading Assessment continues to drop. Access to books during the summer is a key component to ensuring that children read them. A recent biennial nationally representative survey by Scholastic revealed that 20% of children ages 17 and under aren't reading any books at all over the summer, mostly due to a lack of access.

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As of April of this year, at least 29 states and the District of Columbia passed legislation over the past decade that was aimed at improving early reading instruction and student outcomes. However, the findings from those outcomes are mixed. These policies are linked to improvements on state's year end standardized tests, but only states with comprehensive policies that include support, training and funding that are implemented by the third grade saw gains on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or naep, the test typically known as the nation's report card. Overall, states with any kind of literacy policy saw gains in high stakes reading tests in grades 3, 5, with the biggest gains in the third grade. Students improved by 7 to 14% of the annual academic growth of a typical third grader. The policies also seem to slightly reduce disparities in socioeconomic and racial achievement gaps. Based on results from those tests, parental beliefs, including their beliefs about the importance of literacy and math skills, as well as their perceived responsibility for teaching their children reading, math and language skills, relate to home literacy and numeracy activities in distinctive ways. I'll be speaking further about math skills in an upcoming episode. Children's educational experiences at home, including activities involving reading and writing, appear to foster early academic skill development. Practices that support children's language and literacy development, such as shared book reading, are often referred to as home literacy environment and these predict a wide array of language and literacy skills such as vocabulary, phonics activity and vocabulary development. There are two types of practices in the home that support language and literacy development, informal and formal literacy activities. Informal literacy activities include things such as shared book reading which was shown to predict children's language skills including vocabulary and comprehension. Formal literacy activities include educational activities that focus on emergent literacy skills such as letter recognition. Active literacy activities are those activities that children engaged in like writing alphabets and passive literacy activities include those activities that the children simply observed, like watching a parent read. A family's income positively relates to the number of books in the home and the frequency of literacy activities such that these activities occur less often in low income homes compared to high income homes. Research also shows that family level literacy processes outweighed school and neighborhood characteristics in explaining socioeconomic status disparities in reading skills. Throughout early elementary school, income and educational attainment like likely relate to parental behaviors in distinct ways. Income likely constrains parents resources and their ability to invest in their children and this includes purchasing materials for their children, providing them with enriching experiences, and spending time with their children. It is less clear however, how educational attainment may influence the whole learning environment. Some studies suggest that attaining higher levels of education may serve as an opportunity to acquire cultural capital that shapes the parents values and approaches to parenting. Educational attainment may also provide knowledge and skills to parents such as increased access to written materials or professionals for parenting advice or more accurate knowledge of child development, all of which could support more developmentally appropriate behaviors. There are also psychological factors to consider regarding parental socioeconomic resources. For example, parents expectations for their children's academic success relate to enrichment and generally results in strong links between between expectations and behaviors. Parents who believe academic achievement is important engage in enrichment activities more frequently than parents who didn't put such a strong emphasis on early academic skills. Here are some action steps that you can take regarding this topic. Research has shown that that children whose parents encourage reading for pleasure develop into stronger readers than those whose parents associate reading with only an academic skill. It's important to carve out a daily reading routine at home or even on the go, for example during car trips. It's also important to know various ways to access books during the summer and to become familiar with with local libraries and the summer robust reading programs that they provide. Many of these programs have summer reading contests where the child who has read the most books over the summer in certain age categories wins some type of prize or reward. Even if there is no program in place, it's still important to emphasize the experience of reading for pleasure in and of itself. The key to this is to allow your children to choose the book and the format that they prefer and is of interest to them. Writing helps to develop reading skills for younger children if they are not yet writing, Storytelling can be accomplished through verbal skills. Oral storytelling helps you develop creativity as well as vocabulary. For older children ages 5 and above, writing a short story is helpful. Composing a story, for example, is important for your child to develop the overall skills of name writing and spelling by the end of preschool. It's also important to work with your child not only on writing letters, but also on developing composition. As the function of rock writing is to share a message, this can be an opportunity to support composition through meaningful contexts such as writing a grocery list, developing a treasure map, or creating a restaurant menu. Developing this skill just takes creativity and practice. Here are this episode's takeaways. Early literacy is comprised of the knowledge about reading, writing, and learning before elementary school. It's a key factor to determine school readiness. Early childhood education is for children from ages 3 to 6 years old. Reading proficiency is critical to the effective development of academic education and social aptitude throughout the child's life and learning career. Early literacy often begins with child's initial and robust exposure to vocabulary. Therefore, reading success is often tied to adequate language exposure during the early developmental stages so that the child, when they enter the classroom, has sufficiently developed skills that are necessary in order to succeed and in reading. Early writing skills are foundational skills related to young children's literacy development and later reading and writing achievement. Children who are considered at risk for later literacy difficulties lag behind their peers in a number of early writing skills including name writing, letter writing, spelling, and story composition in preschool. Most educators believe that the single most important activity that a child can do during the summer that's related to learning is to read for pleasure. Educational researchers have declared that a lack of access to books during the summer break could translate to a two month loss in reading achievement for for children from low income families, learning language for early childhood is focused on oral and written communication. Learning to read requires time, patience, and readiness. Children who like pictures or letters in their early development will have the desire to read to open new doors, to accept information, and to have fun. Reading also makes a child's knowledge grow. Reading ability is very important early in childhood, so getting information and knowledge easily from various sources or media that have words in it is critical. If this is the type of subject matter and discussion that resonates with you, please follow my podcast or whatever service you're listening to this also, I'd love to hear from you, so please leave me a rating, a review, or a comment on Apple or Podchaser. You can also rate my podcast at www.ratethispodcast.com. if you like this podcast, the best way to support me and help me grow it is by leaving a review. This helps my rankings and entices other people to listen to the show and share this episode with anyone that you think would find it valuable. Be sure to tell your friends, family and community about my podcast. Thanks for listening today. I hope you'll come back for more K12 educational discussions with even more exciting topics to untangle. Be sure to stay tuned on the next episode. I'll be discussing math literacy and whether America is failing math. Until next time, aim to learn something new every day. Foreign my show. Consider being a regular subscriber. You can subscribe for as little as $3 per month. Just go to HTTPs://forward/tinyurl.com forward/podcast support there's no contractual obligation. You can cancel at any time. If you choose to subscribe, I'll give you a special shout out thanking you in an upcoming episode. 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