Foundations of Literacy | S.16 Ep.1

Before children can read or write on their own, they begin developing key skills that pave the way for literacy. Early literacy builds the foundation for future reading success.

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Welcome to the Science of Parenting Podcast, where we connect you with research-based information that fits your family. We'll talk about the realities of being a parent and how research can guide our parenting decisions. I'm Mackenzie DeJong, Mackenzie DeJong-Schelling, your podcast co-host this season. And I am a parenting educator. My co-host this season is our colleague Dr. Connie Beecher, who is a parent to some emerging adults. And I will let her tell us all about herself. Hi, everyone. So, Dr. Connie Beecher, I'm an associate professor in the School of Education at Iowa State University. My area of specialty is language and literacy development. I'm also a family well-being specialist with Extension and Outreach. And we are so excited to have Connie with us this season. I almost said this year, we don't necessarily get her for a whole year, but on the podcast. But for sure, for the season. And this season, we are looking at research-based information and strategies around how we can assist parents as they navigate literacy. We know that parents want to be want to have their kids be successful at school. And we know, especially in reading, and we want to look at what the research tells us, which is that success begins very early in the child's life. That's right. I often say to folks that really it begins at birth, and we're going to take everyone through that whole process. But in the big picture, when you think about literacy, it's so important for your whole life. So obviously, when people have children, we're going to be talking a lot about school. And it's important for school. But literacy is the foundation of even how we learn, and it's associated with long-term high school graduation. It's associated better job outcomes, even better health outcomes, and things like having empathy and reducing stress as an adult. Right, there's all these benefits that reading gets you. And so we'll talk about, when we're talking about literacy it's not just “oh, so we'll be good at school.” It's really about enhancing your life. There are so many things that, you know, reading can help us to benefit. And it just like as you're going through that list, I'm like, “oh yeah, oh yeah.” So before we jump into that too far, if you've been with us before in seasons past, you know that we love a definition. This is a research and reality podcast. So as we look today, we are going to look at the concept of early literacy. And the definition for you all is that early literacy is the knowledge and skills that children have about reading and writing before they are able to read and write independently. It is the foundation that helps children develop the skills they need to read when they are ready. So that's the technical definition, right. That's the fancy thing. But what I'm going to ask Connie, I want to ask you is okay, is language development the same as early literacy? Like is language development the same thing is learning to read? Yeah, so reading really does come from our understanding. Our being able to understand words first, just by listening and saying. So, for those of you who are just listening, I'm holding up a book here. So, we begin with understanding that this sound book is connected to this object. You know, so that's an abstract thing if you think about it. And we grow from that understanding to understanding that those sounds book are represented by letters, B-O-O-K. And we know that the more language, the more kids get really immersed in the sounds of language, the stronger connections they have to be able to parse out those different sounds. And that's really what leads you to literacy, to early literacy skills is being able to connect the sounds of our language with now these squiggly symbols on the page. That makes so much sense. They go hand in hand. It's not necessarily that one is the same as the other, but they do go hand in hand. And I'm excited throughout this season, hearing about how both language development and early literacy do play intermingled together. So, Connie, tell us what that research tells us about, okay, so you mentioned it, right? You said how it connects to all these things. But really, why is literacy and early literacy so significant? So, first let me start by saying when we talk about literacy, we often start with this third-grade milestone. And that's because we know it's a really important milestone. Children who are who can read on grade-level at by third-grade, by the end of third-grade, have a really good chance of graduating from high school, going on to success in post-secondary, whether that's college or post-secondary training. Less likely to be involved with the justice system, you know, and the reason why is because in third-grade, that's when we make the switch from we've spent the early years figuring out the code, like learning to read. And now, from third-grade on, you're going to spend the rest of your time reading to learn. So all of the things that you're going to learn, the science, the social studies, even math, are going to involve reading. And so that's why we really look at that third-grade milestone as it's a it's an important one to meet. I was going to ask why third-grade. But you kind of just explain that I did go through it all. That's all right. Because you like the first thing that, you know, you start going on like, okay, well, why third-grade? But you did say that that it's that switch. I love that that switch from learning to read to reading to learn. And I know we've talked about that before, and I honestly, I was having a conversation the other day and I was like, “oh, I know this thing.”“It's about learning to read and reading to learn.” But anyway, so let's move forward. We know that we have a really good body of research that tells us how we successfully get to that third-grade milestone, and we know that it begins at birth and maybe even before birth. If we're getting technical. One of the things that I've heard you talk about is a child's first 2000 days being critical to early literacy, and I would love it if you would talk about that with us. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, the reason we say even before birth is because we know that last trimester, children, babies in the womb actually they can hear their mother's voice. And so they already start to make that association. And so when babies come out, and their mother speaks or the adults in their life, right. Not just their mothers, but the people that are around them. They turn towards that person because that's a familiar voice. So those first 2000 days are so critical because, by age three, 80% of brain growth is going to happen. So, the way human beings are designed, our brains are not fully connected when they're at birth. And that's like to give us the biggest possible start in life, right? And so we know that children experience different amounts of exposure to language. And now, with technology, we can even see those differences on things like brain scans. So when children are exposed to more language, we see more, we see more, gray matter, cortical growth. We see more wiring and connections and it's a really it's a sensitive window of development. So, when we think about the brain, you've probably all heard the brain is adaptable, right. And we can learn throughout our life. And that's true. But language has a sensitive window that starts to close at age six. Around age six, it's not set in stone. But what that means is in that time, the connections that you have are the connections that you're going to use when it comes to language. And I often say you've heard me say that this is like highways. Right. For some kids we want to envision that super highway with lots of lanes, you know, making it really easy to get to reading. So there's lots of sounds, lots of connections. We know some kids don’t also get as much. And they might have something that looks more like a blacktop, right? It's still going to get you to literacy. It's going to get you there might take longer. You know, kids might need more repetitions. And we can put down, you know, we can add ramps. We can add supports for kids that struggle. But really, that early wiring that you get is what you're going to use. We can't really redo it once it's down. Right. One of the analogies that I use for something else with that highways it's the one that’s more frequently used, so it gets built up more, right. You spend more time, you spend more time building it, and that's how your brain works. I love that highway analogy. I do think that when I think about this specifically, you talk about age six, it seemed so early to me because we talk about other parts of the brain that you have until you're, I don't know, 26 to develop parts of it. But reading in language that that is really early, right. It really is. Although, I should say, you know, when when I'm saying language, I'm talking about specifically like the ability to hear the sounds and to differentiate between the sounds of language. So this is why, like you remember taking a foreign language and they were they would say like,“you're always going to have an accent.”“You're not going to be able to speak like a native,” and it's because your brain is laying down the wiring for those sounds. So if that sound was not used in your language, you're not going to have the wiring for it. Right. And so when I'm saying the window closes, I mean that window to really get that input about sounds. Now you get to build on vocabulary and comprehension and the richness of language, you know, connected to concepts that's going to continue throughout your life. But it's those first are really important, you know, so your brain is trying to figure out the difference between things like dog and bog, right. They sound alike. And so you have to get lots and lots of examples of words so that your brain can tell the difference between those. Okay, so as we talk about the highways too, we kind of look at well I guess in my mind, one of the pictures that comes up, is like parents building little highways inside a child's brain, which is not correct. There's no actual highways inside your brains. It’s just a superhighway of connections. Right. Like you said. But I have a question for you. Those parents building the little bulldozers. You can laugh at me all you want for this. This is how my brain works. But like little bulldozers and concrete trucks that adults are utilizing to build those highways, in a not bulldozers and, you know, trucks way, you talk about building a language environment. So what do you mean by building that language environment? So the language environment, when we talk about that, it means all the talking, that children are exposed to around them. So all the adults who are interacting with them. So talking and reading, there are some things that you might not know. So, it really does have to be the back and forth, right. Me to you. You to me. Yep. So, sometimes for adults, right. We talk all day long. And if you have several children, obviously you're talking to other children, you're talking to other people. Just know that that kind of language isn't necessarily isn't really building that new child's language. It has to be language that's directed at them. So in the same way, children, young children can't learn language from a TV screen. So, we'll get into more of this, like more details about that when we talk about the infants. But it really is, I know it sounds simple, like just talking. Right? It's just a lot of talking. It does. It just sounds simple. Just talk to babies, right. And like you said, we'll dive more into that. One thing that, you know, we'll talk about that more specifically. We'll talk about infants and toddlers. But thinking a little more broadly, we're building foundations. We have a lot of, as we've done in the past, lots of word pictures, right. We're building foundations. So, let's talk about the foundation in terms of our reality. So, what can we do to help parents grow their knowledge of brain development? Build that foundation with where to start with literacy? Where do we build that literacy foundation? Well, and I will start by saying I always believe that it's not just the parents responsibility. So, you know, one of the things that we tend to think of just that one family alone, but think about families being in in communities, you know, so with their friends, with their schools. So, I really like to think about the whole community, schools, libraries, your caring adults, your extended family, right, can all be playing a part in supporting that early literacy development through talking and reading and encouraging and just getting that message out about the importance of talking and reading. We know that when families understand why development is important, when they understand why something is important for their children's development, they will do those things, you know. Yeah That's why we really try to share resources. And throughout the throughout the season, we'll be sharing resources, different resources for families to learn more. I am squirreling a little bit because as you're talking about being that, that that adult with the support of adults, I don't have kids myself, but I have nieces and nephews, and then I have friends that have little dudes. And I always am trying to like,“hey, let's read this book” or “tell me about this, whatever.” So, I love to do that. Just, you know, just a little thing here and there to help expose kids to all of that even more. And maybe help parents even, if they're, you know, they're worried about something else. I can jump in if it is something I can help with, too. So, it's all about that community. So transitioning that and we talked about that community. We talked about the background the building blocks. And we'll talk about this a lot more as we get into the season. We wanted to just start with that foundation that we talked about. We'll look at those stages of literacy development. We’ll suggest some strategies that can help parents provide the best environment, early learning and reading, and then in the next episode, we'll dive more deeply into infants and toddlers specific development and supporting that really early literacy growth. So, that brings us to our Stop. Breathe. Talk. section of the podcast. This portion of our podcast is based on our flagship parenting strategy of stopping taking a nice big breath so we can speak with intention in interactions with our children. So we are going to welcome our friend Hailey. Hailey might be new to some of you, but Hailey is a colleague of ours as well. Hailey, I'm going to let you introduce yourself. Welcome. Hi, everybody. I am Hailey Walker, and I am a member of the Science of Parenting team. And I'm a parenting educator. She sure is, and we are so excited to have Hailey join us this season. Okay, Hailey, now's your time. Do you have a question for us? Of course, I do. As a parenting educator, I know that the foundations of literacy can really begin right when a family finds out that there's a new baby coming. So my question for you both today is for an expecting mom like myself do you have any tips for how I can be really intentional about laying those foundations for my baby before she's even here? There's definitely things that you can do. So, if you have other children. You know one really sweet thing to do would be to have a story time where you're reading and you can talk to your other children about, “hey, your little brother or sister is listening, and they love to hear your voice,” right. So you can be reading with the group, so to speak. And you can also encourage if you have an older child who can read, you can also encourage them to do a reading. You know, I think I mentioned at the beginning that, in the last trimester, we know that, babies in utero can start to hear. And so sometimes people really do have intentional time where the family members, the immediate family members are doing, talking, you know, to that to the baby in the tummy. And I would say, you know, however comfortable you feel with that, some people feel like they think it's great, you know, they're having a conversation. For some people, it can feel kind of awkward, you know, they're not used to talking to things that don't appear to talk back. But it's good. It's good practice because, as we'll talk about in infants and toddlers, you know, when you have that new baby, you're going to be talking a lot to them, and they're not necessarily responding. But I really love to think of it as like family time and and starting that habit of making that family story time. I love that idea of having my older kiddos read to baby before she's even here, so she can recognize their voice. I think they would love to do that, too. With what you share from your kiddos, that I love that idea, too. Never mind, I was going to ask something else to Connie, but we don't need to extend this any longer than we do. But we appreciate Hailey coming on with us. It can be kind of scary that first time. So, it's so it's so awesome to have you join us. We will be seeing more of you throughout the season, so. Yes. All right, we're going to send Hailey away now. I feel like I need to go “whoosh” because that's always what happened to me in previous seasons is they go, “okay, bye.” And then I just whooshed away. All right, so this is the end of our first podcast for this season, all about early literacy. So the first thing to note is that early literacy is fundamental to our kids experiencing success at school. And, like you've mentioned, those first 2000 days are critical to language and early literacy development. And then we know that it takes everyone school, home, early care and education to support a child's ability to become a literate person. I feel like I just stole those things like you were. I was gonna have you say, but I kind of just went for it. No, I think that's good. All right. So, with that, we want to say thank you for joining us today on the Science of Parenting Podcast. Remember that you can subscribe to our weekly audio podcast on Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts, your favorite podcast app. And don't forget that you can watch each episode of our videos on YouTube. So you can see our faces as we talk through this and see what sorts of visual aids that we provide for you. So be sure to check those out. So come along as we tackle the ups and downs, ins and outs, and the research and reality all around The Science of Parenting. The Science of Parenting is a research-based education program hosted by Mackenzie DeJong-Schelling, produced and edited by Brock Beirman, with contributions from Barbara Dunn-Swanson, Dr. Connie Beecher, Hailey Walker, and Morgan Newell. Send in questions and comments to parenting@iastate.edu and connect with us on Facebook. This program is brought to you by Iowa State University Extension and Outreach.