The Importance of the Early Years

1. The Importance of the Early Years Sandra Hogg & Tracey Roden RDG 692/EDCI 690 Spring 2013

2. “One of the best predictors of whether a child will function competently in school and go on to contribute actively in an increasingly literate society is the level to which the child progresses in reading and writing.”~IRA & NAEYC,1998

3. What We Know About the Early Years… • Children take their first important steps to read & write early in life. ~Halliday, 1969 • Long before children demonstrate literacy skills, they begin to acquire basic understandings about the concepts of literacy & its functions. ~Read, 1971 • Children use symbols, print, play, and oral language to created “textual” tools to create and convey meaning long before schooling begins. ~Dyson, 1993, 2003; Y. Goodman, 1980

4. What We Know About the Early Years… • From early experiences & interaction with adults, children begin to learn letter-sound relationships & acquire significant knowledge about the alphabetic system. ~Durkin, 1966 • As children continue to learn, they stretch & reorganize their experiences & knowledge into patterns that allow for “official school literacy.” ~Dyson, 2003 • From these experiences children learn that reading & writing are valuable tools that will help them with many things in life.

5. Growing Evidence that Early Learning Experiences are Linked to Future School Success… • Key predictive skills & abilities: • Oral language (listening comprehension, oral language vocabulary) • Alphabetic code (Alphabetic Knowledge, Phonological/Phonemic awareness, invented spelling) • Print knowledge/concepts (environmental print, concepts about print) • Other indicators Rapid Automatic Naming, visual memory, and visual perception abilities ~NELP, 2008;Strickland & Shanahan, 2004

6. Research Establishes 4 Principles of the Early Years & Literacy Acquisition… • Oral language is the foundation for literacy development. • Learning to read and write starts long before first grade and has long-lasting effects. • Children’s experiences with the world greatly influence their ability to comprehend what they read. • Children’s experiences with books and print greatly influence their ability to comprehend what they read. ~Strickland, 2006

7. Oral language is the foundation for literacy development. • Oral language provides children with an understanding of words & sentences which builds sensitivity to the sound system to acquire phonological & phonemic awareness. • Through their own speech children demonstrate the meanings of written materials. • Children from families that provide rich language & literacy support do better in school. ~Hart & Risley, 1995, 2003 • Exposure to less common, more sophisticated words at home relates to vocabulary acquisition ~Dickinson & Tabors, 2001 • Strong relationship between vocabulary development & reading achievement ~Clay, 1975

8. Learning to read and write starts long before first grade and has long-lasting effects. • Children’s phonological awareness is a indicator of potential success in decoding print. • Children who fall behind in oral language & literacy development before formal schooling are less likely to be successful beginning readers. ~Juel, 1988 • Responsive adults support children’s ongoing, self-motivated learning. ~NRP, 2000; Durkin, 1966

9. Children’s experiences with the world greatly influence their ability to comprehend what they read… • Children’s background knowledge is built from a child’s experiences. • Children with limited experiences may have difficulty in comprehending unfamiliar topics or subjects. • Because of the range of experiences, one teaching method or approach is not likely to be effective with all children.

10. Children’s experiences with books & print greatly influence their ability to comprehend what they read. • Knowledge about print is built from children’s experiences with books & other forms of print. ~Holdaway, 1979. • Shared reading experiences have an important role in fostering early literacy development by building background knowledge, concepts about books & print. ~Teale & Sulzby, 1986.

11. References Clay, M. (1975). The early detection of reading difficulties. London: Heinemann. Dickinson, D., & Tabors, P. (2001). Beginning literacy with language: Young children learning at home and school. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing. Durkin, D. (1966). Children who read early. New York: Teachers College Press. Dyson, A.H. (2003). Popular literacies and the "all" children: Rethinking literacy development for contemporary childhoods. Language Arts, 81(2), 100-109. Dyson, A. H. (1993). Social words of children learning to write in an urban primary school. New York: Teachers College Press.

12. References Goodman, Y. (1980). The Roots of Literacy. Claremont Reading Conference Yearbook, 44, 1-32 Halliday, M.A.K. (1969). Relevant models of language. Educational Review, 22, 26-37. Hart, B., & Risley, T. R. (2003). The early catastrophe: The 30 million word gap. American Educator, 27(1), 4-9. Hart, B., & Risley, T.R. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co. Holdaway, D. (1979). The foundations of literacy. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

13. References International Reading Association & National Association for the Education of Young Children. (1998). Learning to read and write: Developmentally appropriate practices for young children. Newark, DE: IRA. Juel, C. (1988). Learning to read and write. A longitudinal study of 34 children from first through fourth grades. Journal of Educational Psychology, 80, 437-447. National Institute of Child Health and Human Developmen, NIH, DHHS. (2008). Developing early literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel. Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction (NIH Publication No. 00-4769). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Read, C. (1971). Pre-school children’s knowledge of English phonology. Harvard Educational Review, 41(1), 1–34.

14. References Strickland, D. S. & Riley-Ayers, S. (2006). Early literacy: Policy and practice in the preschool years. New Brunswick, NJ: NIEER. Strickland, D. S. & Shanahan, T. (2004). Laying the groundwork for literacy. Educational Leadership, 61, 74-77. Teale, W. H., & Sulzby, E. (1989). Emergent literacy: New perspectives. In D.S. Strickland & L.M. Morrow (Eds.), Emerging literacy: Young children learn to read and write (pp. 1-15). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.