Start Here: Literacy 101

Before Birth:

When should we start promoting literacy? Because literacy begins with hearing, we should start promoting literacy as soon as our little ones can hear, which is when they are 5 months developed in the womb.  At first, she hears only low noises, then high-pitched noises and soon she can start distinguishing voices.  Research shows newborns can even recognize music they heard in the womb.  Pretty amazing!

How should we start promoting literacy? Because literacy begins with hearing, we should start promoting literacy by talking.  It’s that simple! Your voice, love and attention are your child’s strongest, earliest assets on this journey of literacy development.  Think out loud.  Talk as though someone is listening, because she is!

Newborn to 12 months:

Because literacy starts with hearing even before birth, then we should keep talking to them as soon as they are born.  This is when exposure to language really becomes important.  The building blocks for literacy begin with language.  Again, parents and caregivers are baby’s most important sources for language.  Talk to your little one as if she understands, because this is how it all starts.  She is starting to make connections immediately. 

Expose her to as much vocabulary as you can by reading books, singing songs, explaining what you are doing, gesturing, pointing… etc.  Now is a great time to introduce baby sign so she can start using signs to communicate her needs and wants.  It might feel silly at first because there is not an obvious response.  But look closely, make eye contact, engage at her level, and soon you will start to learn a new language too - baby talk.  Eye contact, body wiggles, head turning, dancing feet and hands, little smiles, giggles and babbles - these are all responses to you!  This is your baby’s way of saying, “YES, I’m listening! I love hearing your voice, keep talking to me.”

1 year to 18 months:

This is when language takes off!  Sometime in this period, your baby will most likely SAY her first word!  They are starting to understand more complex ideas as well.  “Go put your shoes away in the shoe basket.”  Off she trotted, down the hall, shoes in hand, to the shoe basket.  I was amazed.  The day she spilled watermelon juice on the floor and walked over to my bag of paper towels behind the washing machine, came back with a paper towel and wiped up the floor, was a revelation to me.  She had been watching EVERYTHING and learning simple tasks and processes - like cleaning up a mess.  WOW! It is the same with literacy development.  They learn what they hear.  The more they hear, the more they learn. 

Here is great site for tips on how to talk to your little one.

Your voice is the first tool you have to strongly build your child’s early literacy skills, but there is another equally important tool you have to offer - yourself.  Your attention, interest and effort to understand your child becomes the second strongest asset as she develops literacy skills and self-confidence.  We should not underestimate ourselves!

I am so grateful to the dad at the park several months back.  I asked him what one important thing he did early on in his daughter’s homeschooling that benefitted her learning.  He said, “We just tried to really listen to her.”  At the time, my little one was just starting to utter words, but as those little utterances became more elaborate melodies of babble and recognizable words, I kept hearing what that dad has said, and I stopped and really listened to her, grasping for context, following her gazes and gestures and soon I was able to discover how much she was communicating.  These young minds are like sponges, quickly absorbing everything they can.  Its our job to keep a flow of language for them to absorb. 

Here are some tips to supporting your child’s communication skills.

*A note on this: as Love Bug’s primary caregiver, I am able to recognize far more words of hers because I am with her all day everyday.  If you share this gift of caregiving with others on a regular basis, (family, friends, teachers) try to keep each other updated with new words and phrases each day or week, so that everyone can continue building her confidence and vocabulary by listening and understanding her attempts to verbally communicate.  For example:  Love Bug can see the street from her highchair, and one day she kept pointing and saying, “Buddy is walking!” I wracked my brain trying to think who we knew named Buddy, but then as she kept saying this as different people walked by, I realized she was saying “SOMEBODY is walking.”  So I made it a point to tell Daddy that night, so he would not get confused, and be able to keep up with her train of thought if I was not around.  This will all help with the frustration-factor of not being understood.  I think children tend to have more tantrums when they are not being understood - reasonably so.  The more effort we put into understanding them, the more harmony we can maintain and avoid these tantrums. 

18 months to 2 years:

This is the phase we are in now.  Love Bug’s vocabulary and sentence construction is taking off! Family and friends are having a blast discovering the complexities of her little mind as she is able to communicate what she sees, wants, does, thinks… it is so much fun!  In the next few weeks I will continue to immerse her in vocabulary and more complex ideas and explanations by asking questions and conversing with her, but I will also focus on bringing more written words into our learning.  I will share many of the ways I do this, so keep coming back and join me!

Check out my post on Building a Teaching Toolbox for a few ideas on helpful things to have on hand.

(The truth is, children develop at their own rate, and some have extenuating conditions that alter their development.  For more on this, check out this post.)