Preschool Literacy: Setting the Stage for Success | S.16 Ep.3

Preschool is a prime time for building language and literacy skills. Reading at this stage involves emerging abilities that begin to resemble more traditional reading behaviors.

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Welcome back 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 help guide our parenting decisions. I'm Mackenzie DeJong-Schelling, podcast co-host, and I'm a parenting educator. Hi everyone. Dr. Connie Beecher, literacy professor and family wellbeing specialist at Iowa State University. Welcome back, everyone, to the third episode in this season on literacy and language with our kids. As we know, earlier, we talked about engaging with our kids. As we engage with them, the stronger they'll be. And in fact, as we talked to them, we can help them to build that brain superhighway in the brain. I won't get into my analogy on cars and vehicles and brains. Anyway. Last podcast. We specifically talked about language, nutrition and that serve and return conversation between a child and their caregiver. So, we're going to use that as our diving-off point for today's conversation as well. In this episode, we are going to focus on preschool age. So that 3 to 5 year old range. So, Connie, I have a question for you, and I want to know, is it still all about that yummy language nutrition and that serve and return as we move from toddlerhood to preschool age? We are still going to be talking about talking. It really is still like one of the primary ways we are developing kids’ language and their pre-literacy skills. So now as we're in the preschool age, our kiddos are saying words. They're saying sentences. And so there really is like a true back and forth. So when you say something, they are saying something. Absolutely. Right? Sometimes, they are starting conversations. You know. And so it's still listening the back and forth. And we now start to see some things that we can identify as like real literacy, right. Where we might be singing the alphabet song. Kids are noticing the print and letters and the books that we're reading together more. Right. And we know that as parents, we play a really powerful role in all of that. So where do we where do we even begin? Right. What are maybe what are some of those key things parents can do to support literacy at home? So we are definitely always saying parents are the first teachers. And that's just true. You know, whoever their caregivers are at home. So we are thinking more now about having that regular reading routine when we have infants and toddlers, we're reading, but they're wiggly. They're on the move. Right. We maybe not have developed a routine, but now is the time to really start thinking about that. So, will it be a bedtime routine? Is it a morning routine? You know what works for you and your family? It's kind of like, you know, when you're trying to get your steps in how they say you don't have to do it all at once. Absolutely. Right. So with reading, you can think about that to. We generally say, you know, 15 to 20 minutes for kids this age a day and you don't have to do it all at once. And hey, maybe you don't get to it every day, but start to think about that, that regular sort of activity that you're going to do. And it doesn't have to be like our traditional what we think of like sitting on the couch and reading or just at bedtime, although bedtime is a really popular time to do reading at this age, maybe including books. While they're in the bathtub or at mealtimes or as you're out and about, having just books on hand to pull out of your bag. Right. That it doesn't need to be what we traditionally think of as, as book, quote unquote book time. Right? Right. And I would say, like, as a challenge to parents, when you are out, and you're having to wait. So instead of pulling out a phone to distract or entertain, think about keeping a little book in your bag and pulling out a book. And if you don't have a book singing a song, you know, playing a rhyming game or playing a game like I-Spy, you know all things that actually can support literacy development. I love I-Spy. But that's a great challenge for for parents or caregivers to come up with a new way to spend that time. But it sounds to me like talking is still key. We incorporate books, those sorts of things, but talking is still key. So, we want to engage in rich conversations with your child throughout the day, too. Right. So things like telling stories, asking questions, listening attentively to their responses. We talked about doing that in the earlier years but continuing that and even watching shows, watching videos, if we're going to do that, not just leaving it at what's on the screen, but asking questions, discussing what's happening, what are doing in that? So, what does that look like in real life? So, and again, I just want to repeat something you said, because it's a great point. You will hear people talking about screen time, right? And it is one of those things that you want to be aware of. We know with research that when screens are on, there's less talking happening. We just know that that's true. So one of the things that you can be very intentional about is, you know, if you're watching a show together and we're not shaming people, right? We're not here to tell you what to do in your family. But if you are watching a show together, think about talking about what's happening on the show, you know, so just including conversations in that screen time and making it an intentional back and forth. The other thing I will say that we can start to do now is talking about things that are in the future or things that have happened in the past. And the reason is, talking about things that are not right in front of you, like things that are not right there in the room. It's kind of an abstract thing that really actually helps their, you know, their language development and cognitive development. Sure. That makes me think of one of the things that I teach a class to preschool teachers. In that age, and one of the things that we encourage them to do is to ask questions about play. You know, and it's not just yes or no questions. It's, well, what do you think that rhinoceros is going to do in this block environment? What kind of things do you think that, you know, where are the trucks going? Expanding that conversation. What is going to happen? What do they think is going to happen? And playing that out in their conversations. Yeah, definitely asking why and how. Yes. You know, so why do you think that? How do you know that's true? So this is a time that we can also start to look at the print and books. I know previously we've looked at mostly the pictures and the images, but we can start to look at the print on those books, right? Yeah. So I have, Eric Carle's From Head to Toe if you're watching. You can see this, but, you could start to run your finger under the words now as you're reading them, just again, drawing their attention to the fact that the meaning the reason you're saying those are because of these, squiggles on the page. Right. Also be thinking about signs, you know, pointing out signs out in the community. And you'll notice that kids will start to read signs. Another thing you can do to bring awareness to print is actually turn on the closed captioning on your TV. Yeah, and a lot of people don't think about that. And I started doing it because I worked with kids with hearing loss. Sure. And then I noticed that my kids were picking up the words in the closed captioning. So, and research does actually show that it can help people learn to read. I love that idea of adding closed captioning. I know that using closed captioning is considered universal design. And I have a lot of interest in the concept of universal design. So there'd be lots of benefits to adding those on. And I know that one of the strategies that we encourage preschool teachers to use, like I mentioned before, I work with them and is to label things. So it's kind of that same idea, right. Putting text and images to make those connections throughout the room. One of the other things that I thought of, excuse me, one of the other things that I thought of as you were talking through, that is noticing the signs. When I was a kid, we would always play the alphabet game as we were traveling. So I would always we would always do like you start at A you find the A on the signs. And I know we started this when I was like young. My sister's five years older than me. So it was, you know, she would do it and I would notice, that was a really fun way to be engaged as we were traveling, to notice the A on the whatever sign, and it couldn't be on the same sign, but just so many fun games that we can connect to print as we are, quote-unquote, out in the wild. Right? Right. Yeah. So, we are noticing print, we're still playing with language. So again, as you are out and about singing songs, especially rhyming songs. So you know, that is just like we talked about parentese how babies be able to hear the sounds. Right. Rhyming songs really helps kids being able to pay attention to the vowel sounds in words. And so you may not necessarily enjoy kids music. But the reason it's silly, and it has those rhymes is because it helps kids pay attention to that, to those sounds. It has purpose. That’s, you know, that's called phonological awareness, which just means the sounds paying attention to the sounds of language. Absolutely. I love that idea of making it playful, engaging and remembering that those songs, as repetitive as they might be, they do serve a purpose. Right. Including that. So, that idea of making it playful, engaging, serving a purpose. You mentioned choosing books that interest our children. Any advice for parents who might be feeling overwhelmed by the sheer volume of books that there are available? How do I choose what books we do use with our kids? Well, and you know, one of the things I always say too is, you know, don't be too worried about, you know, if you read a book that doesn't have a great story, you know, it's fine. It’s the reading part is fine, but generally, at this age, kids really like sort of bright, colorful illustrations. We're looking for, now we'll see, a couple of sentences per page. You know, and then also, yeah, be thinking about what their interests are. You know, does your kiddo love trucks or dinosaurs or, you know, fairy princesses, whatever it is. Yeah. Whenever they like. You can find a book with that, right? Yeah. And, do we introduce books once and then we throw it away, or do I get to read the same book? Yeah. You know, kids really love repetition. Again, you're going to be singing those same songs over and over. You're going to be reading those same books, their favorites, over and over. And for sure, you're you'll get tired of it. But kids do not get tired of it. It's really helping them. The repetition really helps them learn. So they're picking up those patterns. It's also sort of that comfort of familiarity that kids really like. So that's part of what makes story time really good, you know, not just for reading, but like, emotionally, like in your development and, you know, it's comforting, it's predictable. You know, people like that kind of thing. Absolutely. And we know that we want to connect books to your life, right? That it it's important to do that. Do you want to talk a little bit about connecting books to real life? So one of the things I say is, you know, reading, you think about is, how what you just read connects to what you already know. And so as you're reading, if you're reading, for example, Eric Carle Head to Toe, right? And it's about animals you can talk about is there a time that you went to the zoo or that you saw animals? Or what's your favorite animal, or what animal do you wish you could talk to? So as you're now starting to have conversations about books, be connecting what you read with things that are relevant in your life. Yeah, remember that one time we were at the zoo and we saw the gorillas and there's a gorilla in this book, and oh yeah, I actually I'm thinking about the time that I saw the gorillas. Oh, I'm sure you are. And they're not blue, you know. They're not blue. They’re not. They're not. But, you know, in the right, like, they kind of they're. Yeah. They're shiny. Maybe a little blue, I don't know. Well, that's really good advice. to connect those books to real life. And speaking of real life, we know that kindergarten is a big milestone in a child's life, and preschool comes before kindergarten. So what do kindergarten teachers expect as our children are coming into their classroom? Yeah, that's a that's a good thought because it really has changed. So, you know, I would say in the past, people would think about kindergarten being the time that you would learn about letters. Right. And now, really, that happens in preschool. And so when kids get to kindergarten, when they show up, pretty much kindergarten teachers expect them to know their letters, be able to write their names, know the names of colors, basic shapes, numbers, you know, the beginning numbers. Be able to do things like a follow a simple directions, you know, wait, there's a lot of waiting that happens in kindergarten. Right. Those are all things that kind of, you know, when you show up to kindergarten with that skills you're going to with those skills, you're going to be in a good spot. Sure. So, does that mean that maybe I should, be like, if I'm a, a parent of a preschooler, should I be, like, printing out worksheets to be using at home, getting them ready for that? No. So no, you don't have to do worksheets. You could get there really by some of the things we've been saying. So again, singing songs, singing the alphabet song, sitting down and, you know, writing their children's names with them. Okay. You know, again, pointing out print in books and, for most kids, they will really start to pay attention to that. Sometimes people want to know, like what order to kids learn letters. Yeah. And there is there is a general order, but, kids learn the letters of their name first. That's what they learn. So, my name is Mackenzie. There is a Z in it. Most kids don't learn a Z, and I remember as a kid that I was so hyper-aware of everywhere I saw Z. I thought it was so cool that I had a Z in my name exactly. So, like, yeah, Z's normally a later developing letter, but since it was in your name, you were on the lookout for it? Absolutely. I also prided myself. This is not necessarily related to this, but I always prided myself when we left cursive that I knew how to do a Z because nobody else did. But anyway, you know, that's not related to this. But the yeah, the letters that we find in our name. And when you have nine letters in your name, you learn a lot of letters right away, okay? It's just an advantage. There we go. So that leads us into a bit of what I call this our reality section. Kind of like we've done in the past. But our reality is that there's a lot of ways to incorporate language and literacy skills at home, but we want to encourage parents and help parents out through the work that we do. We don't just do podcasting. We also have programs available through Iowa State Extension and Outreach. And one of the programs that we have is all about incorporating pre-literacy activities at home, and it is called Raising School-Ready Readers. And another one that we have available that is a virtual program is called Our Bookshelf. So these two programs are both about literacy with preschoolers. If you're interested in expanding your knowledge and how to help your kiddos to expand that literacy in the preschool years, check those out. Go to the extension web page. And if you're not lucky enough to be in Iowa, you can look at local libraries, parent programs. Would you talk about programing at libraries? Yeah. You know, of course, I have lots of library friends. Hi all my library friends. Hello. I grew up, you know, as a kid going to the library like, every week. And it was just really one of those things that, if you are, you know, if you can make a library habit, it's really supportive of kids reading development. And so just regular visits to the library to check out books, but also libraries have story times. And in their story times they don't just read, but they also sort of do point out some early literacy things. So if you are kind of paying attention and being involved, you can see sort of how the librarian is reading that story and some of the things that they do. And you can do that at home. So they, sorry, I was gonna say sometimes they also have great, like crafts and different kinds of interactive things. Other ways to make it like real and kind of bring the book to life. Those are really great ways. Just, yeah. So I guess our reality is encouraging you to find a program, find a library. And public libraries are great, right? Get your library card, and go to those. I know one of my nephews, especially, he loves going to the library. And when he was younger, my sister would take him. And now he's old enough that we can drop him off at the library, and he finds books that he likes, but he has these older elementary. So, starting that early to go to libraries and get involved. Also, a great way as a parent to get just involved in the community, meet other parents, those sorts of things. Right. Right. There's just, I mean, you know, there's so much going on at libraries now, too. You can check out, you know, our libraries have these great checkout STEM kits. You know, you can check out some libraries have tools and and you know, things like that. You could check out. It's just amazing to me, like all the things that you can get at your library. So now I'm going to go build and yeah. All those things. Speaking of the great resources and the people that we meet along the way, I'm going to bring it in. It's time for our Stop. Breathe. Talk. section. So reminder that our Stop. Breathe. Talk. is based on our flagship parenting strategy of stopping, taking a breath and speaking intentionally. So we're going to bring in our friend Hailey Walker. She is our colleague, a parents and someone bringing us a question. Hi, Hailey. Hi, everyone. You have mentioned some really fantastic tips on how we can weave literacy into our everyday lives. And you also shared some things that are expected when preschoolers are going to be moving into the kindergarten stage. And you talked about being able to recognize letters. So I am selfishly thinking ahead to when my little one is going to be this age. Does she need to be able to write all the letters going into kindergarten, or does she just need to know them? How do I know when she’s ready for that move to kindergarten? Or at least on the right track. Right. Great. Yeah. Great question. So, this goes in general, you know, kids will learn to recognize letters before they can write them, in general, with anything. Right? They learn to recognize a rhyme before they can produce a rhyme. So you can say do cat and hat rhyme? Yes. Can you think of a word that rhymes with hat? That's slightly harder. So same with writing. They can recognize the letters. It might take them a little longer to write the letters. So, you can definitely sit down and have fun writing their name. Practicing writing. You can write it. They can model it. Don't see it, again, as like seat work kind of thing. Try to make it a natural. So you're doing arts and crafts? I would say even more important than writing, and yes, like work with them to write their name, but doing arts and crafts at home, scissors, cutting things, gluing that fine motor. Right. Yeah. That actually really helps work the fine motor, doing coloring and sometimes in sort of our busy lives or, you know, maybe not wanting to have messes or, you know, whatever it is. Right? Sometimes people are, you know, don't think about those things. And it really helps. So really like, have your craft box out, you know, have a box with crayons and scissors and glue. And so then when they're drawing a picture, you can say like,“oh, let's sign it, let's write your name.” And that's like a more authentic thing than saying, like, “hey,”“let's just sit down and write our name,” because that's, you know, maybe not something that is as fun. I am laughing because I know there's parents out there that are like,“oh, that just sounds like a mess.” Well, if you are scared of the mess and you don't want to do the arts and crafts, Aunt Kenzie will come over. I will be everyone’s aunt. I will find an art Find an aunt. Yeah. And I’m going to do arts and crafts with you, because that's my favorite part, so. Get an older sibling. Let a grandparent do it. But you know, again, having like a tub that you can pull out it's also a great thing to do. Like while you're busy making dinner say to pull that out. If you have older kids, and they're doing homework, for the, you know, for the little ones, they can have their own work, right?“Work,” but fun. In a fun way. Yeah, that's a great reminder, because that's one of those things that we might be doing anyway that doesn't feel like, oh, and I got to get her ready for kindergarten, where already kind of doing those arts and crafts, and it's really simple to put a piece of paper and a crayon in their hand. And you don't think about it being, you know, a tool for preparing for kindergarten, but it is. Right. Yeah, definitely. And one thing that we keep in mind, play is a child's greatest work, right? So arts and crafts. Being able to do those sorts of things, that's how they learn, right? So, don't just thinking of as, “oh, they're just coloring” or oh, they're just, you know, whatever crafty design that they came up with that.“Oh, they're just doing whatever.” Like that is work. They are working and they learning and they're building those skills. And I just always want parents to keep that in mind. Like play is work. Like that is how they learn at that age. Yeah. So. Thank you. Well, thank you. Yeah, great question. There's so much to it, right? That it's not just about sitting down and reading. There's so many things that come into play as we talk about literacy. So, we have talked about some really practical tips today. And before we wrap up, I do want to ask you, do you have any final thoughts or encouragement for parents as they embark on this literacy journey with their preschoolers? Yeah. You know, I would say we want to keep the big picture in mind, which is the thing that you get to do as the parent is have this really great, positive relationship around books. Yeah. That's fun. You know, honestly, it's should be like a fun, rewarding experience for both of you. So remember, keep the fun part of it, and your goal as a parent, so yes, you have a job to do in preparing your kids for school, and you're definitely going to be there to support them. But you want to be thinking about them as a reader, their life like a lifelong reader. Right. Thinking about books being a part of their life, their whole life. Right. And it's really beneficial. Like there's so many benefits. Yes. And there's so many like special memories you can have around books that I really think, if you ever find yourself getting frustrated, you know, again, take a step back. Remember, it's about the relationship. Yes. Thinking about reading as that special time with you with your child. And the other things, you know, the other things will come. Yeah. I remember fondly the time that, especially my dad, my mom was really involved as well. She was a reading teacher, for goodness sakes. But I remember the times that my dad would lay in bed with us and read at night and just, I mean, he would fall asleep and pick up right where he left off. That's what dads do. Yeah. I just remember those times so fondly that, you know, time spent together, just enjoying a book together. So, thank you so much for everything that you shared today. And I look forward to going into other ages as well. I do have a little soft spot for the preschool age, but I look forward to continuing the conversation on literacy as we go through the rest of the ages. So, to our listeners, thank you for joining us today on the Science of Parenting Podcast. If you are looking for additional parenting resources related to any age, really, that including preschoolers, do

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www.scienceofparenting.org. We have tons of resources around parenting on there. As well as you'll be able to find some of those local programs if you're interested in those. So scienceofparenting.org. Come along as we tackle the ups and downs, the ins and outs, and 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.