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The National Early Literacy Panel (NELP)¹ analyzed 300 peer-reviewed research articles on early literacy in young children in order to identify interventions and practices that support positive literacy outcomes for preschool children. The panel was interested in examining what skills and abilities in children ages birth to five years would predict later reading outcomes. Preliminary results indicated that alphabet knowledge, phonological awareness , rapid naming tasks involving either the naming of letters and numbers or naming of objects and colors, writing or writing own name, phonological² short-term memory were good predictors of later reading and writing skills. They also reported that shared bookreading helps promote oral language skills and the type of shared bookreading has an impact on the size of this effect. Children's language development profits most from interactive bookreading styles where adults actively engage children in the text by asking them open-ended questions, connecting the text to the child's own world and by making predictions. Future work of the panel will focus on the influence of demographic characteristics related to the early literacy interventions. Over the last few years there has been a tremendous increase in knowledge about infant and toddler development. The early years of a child's life set the stage for what will follow. A recent study by Bus and de Jong (2006) argued that book sharing with infants and toddlers can make an enormous difference in their lives. Caregivers play an important role in making books interesting and relevant to very young children. Whether infants and toddlers actively participate in and learn from bookreading depends for a large part on whether a caregiver is able to create a link between the book and the child's world. Caregivers can make this connection between book and child by using language, gestures, and also by selecting specific books. When caregivers recognize certain cues indicating that a child finds something interesting they are often more successful in interacting with the child around a book. Even when young children do not seem to be interested in the story, they may enjoy the intimacy of bookreading itself (Bus, 2001, 2003). A child's interest in a book is often the result of early positive experiences and joint engagement with adults and books (Bus & de Jong, 2006). Bus, A., de Jong, M. (2006). Book sharing: A Developmentally Appropriate Way to Foster Preacademic Growth. In S.E. Rosenkoetter & J. Knapp-Philo (Eds.), Learning to Read the World: Language and Literacy in the First Three Years (pp.123-144). Washington DC: Zero to Three Press. National Early Literacy Panel (NELP) (2007). Synthesizing the Scientific Research on Development of Early Literacy in Young Children. Retrieved on November 3rd 2007 from: http://www.famlit.org/site/c.gtJWJdMQIsE/b.2133427/k.2623/National_Early_Literacy_Panel.htm. ¹NELP was convened by the National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL) and received funding from the National Institute for Literacy (NIFL). ²Phonological awareness is an emergent literacy skill which describes someone's awareness of sounds in a particular language and the ability to manipulate sounds in a purposeful way. An example of phonological awareness is the ability to produce rhymes (Ezell & Justice, 2005). Elisabeth Duursma is the Director of Research Initiatives for ROR. In 2007, she received her doctoral degree (EdD) in education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education with a specialization in language and literacy. Elisabeth, her husband, and her 18-month-old daughter live in Needham, MA. |
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