Why early literacy is important

Importance of Early Literacy for Ages 0 - 5

WHY EARLY LITERACY MATTERS

The Importance Of Early Literacy

Early literacy means helping children develop a rich vocabulary, self-expression, and reading comprehension—tools they need to become successful readers and lifelong learners. These skills allow a young child to enter kindergarten with a love of books and a readiness to learn.

Why is Early Literacy Important For Families and Communities?

Parents want nothing more than for their children to be healthy, happy, and successful in life. The ability to spend time with your children, and provide them with tools and activities that support their language development can depend on the community that you live in and the resources available. Families living in communities with fewer resources and less long-term investment have more barriers to engaging their children in early literacy activities. The differences are quantifiable early and can lead to a 30-million-word gap (# of words a child has been exposed to) by age 3. The effects of this word gap persist as children enter kindergarten. Children from families with a lower income have been shown to perform below their peers and remain behind throughout their school years.

The Little by Little Program helps to reduce this word gap because the program is designed to provide knowledge and resources to families so they can begin to foster and support early literacy habits at home on a consistent basis. The program provides high-quality educational books, as well as guidance on the importance of reading to increase a child’s vocabulary, comprehension and language skills, and on the critical role parents play in preparing their kids for school.

Early Childhood Literacy Disparities and Ongoing Impacts

Where you start out in life shouldn’t determine where you end up. But the reality is, young children from families facing financial instability experience fewer activities and opportunities that foster their emergent literacy skills, compared to children from families with higher, more stable income. Children who fall behind early are less likely to catch up, and they tend to remain behind as they move through successive grades at school.

Missing the Critical Window for Brain Development

Research tells us that the first three years of life are critical for a child’s brain development. By age 2, a child’s brain is as active as an adult brain and by age 3, a child’s brain is twice as active as an adult brain. If a child is not stimulated during this critical period, learning is much more difficult and less successful for that child, even in a learning enriched environment.

Falling Behind and Staying Behind

Children, particularly those from families facing barriers to economic stability, who fall behind academically tend to stay behind throughout their school years. Studies have found that children are much more likely to have reading challenges at the end of fourth grade if they were experiencing reading challenges at the end of first grade.

Lower High School Graduation Rates and Lower Salaries

Individuals without a high school diploma or an equivalent (such as a GED) earn the lowest salary compared to all other education levels and have the greatest risk for unemployment. Despite rising national graduation rates, students who are from families facing financial challenges continue to lag behind their peers in finishing high school and may be less prepared to enter the workforce, pursue technical training, or enroll in higher education.

Source: The Heckman Curve - The Heckman Equation

Higher Adult Illiteracy Rates

Literacy deeply and persistently impacts access to education, economic prosperity, and opportunity. Adults struggling with literacy are more likely to be from communities that have been under-resourced and often miss out on opportunities to participate to their full potential in the workforce. Currently, over 40 million American adults are functionally illiterate and are unable to read above a fifth-grade level.

The Consequences of Low Literacy Are Alarming

The consequences of low literacy can be profoundly challenging and can impact a child’s success in school and life. This is particularly true for children from families and communities facing barriers to progress and with fewer literacy resources available.

of families with lower incomes have no children’s books in their homes.

of children arrive at kindergarten without the skills necessary for lifelong learning.

of children from communities that are facing barriers to progress enter first grade up to two years behind their peers.

of America’s fourth graders read below proficiency level, and 82% of those children are from families with fewer resources available.

Supporting Early Literacy for Children and Families

The Little by Little School Readiness Program is designed to provide the knowledge and resources to families engaged in the WIC program so they can begin to foster early literacy habits at home. The Little by Little Program works to reinforce the need to start reading with children early, and the critical role parents play in preparing their children for school and lifelong success.

More Books in the Home

WIC families who participate in the Little by Little Program have a higher number of books in the home, compared to families who receive WIC services alone. Little by Little Program participants receive up to four high-quality educational books per child, per year, helping to build a home library for the whole family to share and enjoy, while supporting early literacy development and comprehension skills.

Increased Daily Reading to Children

WIC families participating in the Little by Little Program read to their children more often, compared to families who receive WIC services alone. Teaching letters, words, or numbers and playing music and singing together also increases due to program participation among WIC families.

More Knowledge of Child Development

WIC families participating in the Little by Little Program know more facts about child development compared to families who don’t participate in the program. Engaging in activities to enhance child development also increases due to program participation in the Little by Little Program among WIC families.

Increased School Readiness in Children

WIC children participating in the Little by Little Program had significantly increased school readiness scores compared to children who were only participating in WIC. These program evaluation findings for school readiness were published in March 2011 by the Journal of Pediatrics.

In Los Angeles County, the Little by Little Program costs approximately $52 per child per year.

Your gift of any amount helps children engage in strong literacy practices and prepare for lifelong success.

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About Early Literacy - Raising Readers

What is emergent literacy?

Emergent literacy is a term that means getting ready to read.

Newborns come into the world ready to process language! In the first 3 years of a baby’s life, they become more aware of the language we use. Each time we read, talk, and sing with them, we help build their understanding of language. Reading aloud helps them learn how text works and helps to increase their language and literacy skills as they grow.

This early phase, before children are reading on their own, is called the emergent literacy phase. Emergent literacy leads to early literacy.

Emergent literacy skills

Children learn many important things during the emergent literacy phase, including:

Vocabulary building
Learning how our language works and how to use language to tell stories, share ideas and ask questions
Learning how to hold books
Learning to identify different types of books like storybooks, fact books, poetry, cookbooks, etc.
Learning to write by drawing and scribbling
Playing with the sounds of language through songs, rhymes and tongue twisters
Building knowledge of the world around them
Understanding letter-sound connections
Developing a love of literacy (reading and writing)

Why is emergent literacy important?

Reading aloud to babies is the single most important thing we can do to help prepare them for reading and learning. That’s because emergent literacy is the foundation on which all future learning happens. The stronger a child’s literacy foundation, the stronger all future learning will be.

Every time we read, talk, and sing with babies, we are creating strong bonds and building their foundation for learning and understanding. These connections have a positive impact on children for the rest of their lives!

What we already know:

Reading aloud to children, starting at birth, helps build brain connections during the first 5 years of their life. This is the time in which 90% of a child’s brain development happens. (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University)
The number of words a child knows when they start kindergarten is a predictor of their future success in school and in life. (Read Aloud 15 Minutes)
More than 1 in 3 American children start kindergarten without the skills they need to learn to read. (American Academy of Pediatrics)
Reading aloud to children helps associate books and reading with people they love, which motivates them to read more. (Healthy Children)
Reading, talking, singing, and playing with young children helps to improve their language, literacy, social skills, and emotional skills. It also helps to secure the bond between parent/caregiver and child. (American Academy of Pediatrics)
A person’s ability to read lowers their risk of poverty, improves their chances of employment, increases social inclusion, and leads to a healthier life. (The United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization)
Adults with low literacy skills often struggle to access and use the healthcare system for themselves and their young children. This can cause risks of developmental and health issues. (Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy)

Early literacy: birth to age six

Reading aloud to your child every day increases his brain's ability to comprehend language, develops his literacy skills, and is the single most important thing you can do to prepare him for learning to read.

Children prepare to read long before they enter school: Early literacy is all that children know about reading and writing before they can actually read and write. Early literacy is the baby who chews on a book, the toddler who wants to have his favorite book read over and over again, and the preschooler who "reads" you a story by heart. nine0003

Early literacy skills begin to develop in the first 5 years of life. We used to think that a child's successful reading skill depended on the "right" first grade teacher. We now know that your child's chance of success in first grade depends on how much they learned about reading before they entered school. Your child's early exposure to books and language lays the foundation for success in learning to read.

Early literacy is not "learning to read". nine0003

You have heard many times that you are your child's first and best teacher. And it is true. But your task is not to formally "teach" reading. Your child will learn to read at school. The most important thing you can do to promote early literacy is to create an atmosphere that is fun, verbal and stimulating, not school-like. The focus should not be on learning, but on the pleasure you get with your child – give your child plenty of opportunities to talk and be heard, to read and listen when read to, to sing and listen to being sung. nine0003

There is no need for any memorization, text and picture cards, workbooks or exercises. Children exposed to an interactive rich educational environment full of enjoyable language learning opportunities will develop early literacy skills.

You are the key to your child's success in learning to read. When you read, talk or play with your child, you are stimulating the growth of his brain and the building of those connections that will become the building blocks for learning to read. Brain development research shows that reading aloud to your child every day enhances their brain's ability to develop language, reading and writing abilities, and is the single most important thing you can do to prepare your child to learn to read. nine0003

According to a survey of kindergarten teachers conducted in the fall of 2006 by the Oregon Department of Education, 19.4% of Multnomah County children entered kindergarten “unprepared for success” mainly because they lacked the necessary language and pre-school skills. reading. Experts now know that

Development of language and literacy skills begins at birth.
Children develop most of their learning potential in their first three years of life when their brains grow to 90 percent final adult volume.

Our mission is to encourage all adults who have significant contact with children aged 0-5 to talk and read to them to help them succeed both in school and in life.

Six habits of early literacy | Multnomah County Library

Young children need a variety of skills to become successful readers. The Reading Experts Group has identified six specific early literacy skills that are the foundation for further development of reading and writing skills. Research shows that the more of these skills children have when they first enter school, the better they understand reading guidelines in school. nine0003

Vocabulary

Vocabulary, that is, knowing the names of different things, is an extremely important skill that children need when they are learning to read. Most children, when they come to school, know between 3,000 and 5,000 words. Help expand your child's vocabulary by reading a variety of books, both fiction and non-fiction, and by naming everything the child sees around.

Craving for the printed word

Craving for the printed word is the child's interest in books and the pleasure he gets from reading books. A child with a craving for the written word likes to be read to, plays with books, pretends to write, asks to be read to, and loves to go to the library. Cultivate this love of books in your child by turning book reading into a special ritual, giving your child access to books and letting him know that you also like to read. Explain how you use reading in your daily life. nine0003

Understanding the concept of writing

Understanding the concept of writing includes knowing that writing in English follows certain rules, such as writing from left to right and top to bottom, and that people who can read read the printed text on the page. An example of understanding the concept of writing is a child's ability to point to individual words on a book page. Your child's understanding of the concept of writing can be developed by pointing to words and reading them aloud wherever you see them - on signs, on labels, in grocery stores and in the mail. nine0003

Storytelling skills

Storytelling skills, that is, the ability to understand and tell stories and describe things, are important for a child to understand what they are learning to read. An example of a storytelling skill is a child's ability to tell what happened at a birthday party or when they went to the zoo.

Help your child develop their storytelling skills by asking them to tell you about a book instead of just listening to you read it. Regularly ask your child to tell you about what he did. nine0003

Letter knowledge

Letter knowledge refers to knowing that letters have names and that they are different from each other, and that certain letters correspond to certain sounds. Letter knowledge is when a child can say what the letter B is called and what sound it corresponds to.

Letters can be developed through many fun activities that include reading and writing; for example, you can point to letters in the alphabet, in picture books or on signs and labels and name them. Talk with younger children about the shape of objects, and with preschoolers, you can try drawing letters and pictures in the sand. nine0003

Understanding the concept of sounds

Understanding the concept of sounds is the ability to hear and manipulate the individual sounds that make up words.