Young Children Learn When Adults Provide Them With Regular, Repeated and Positive Literacy Experiences

Whether adults are reading to children or playing with them, the way they do it affects how well a child learns from that activity. Research identifies three aspects of adult-child literacy experiences that are particularly important:

• Literacy experiences should occur regularly. In a study of achievement among American kindergartners, researchers found that children whose parents read to them more frequently learned to read more easily (West, Denton & Germino-Hausken, 2000). Our guides and activities emphasize the importance of making reading to children a regular part of family routines. We also suggest how parents can identify best times and places for reading to their children.
  
  
• Repeated readings of the same text help children learn to read. When first grade children have an opportunity to hear a book read again, they are more likely to remember some of the words, and to read them fluently and with expression (Herb, 1987). Our guides point out the importance of repeated readings. Each of our programs and lessons are centered on a children's book which is to be taken home and enjoyed by the families. It is read to the children during the program in a manner that will motivate children to ask to hear it again at home. Parents are then provided with additional ideas for re-reading the book at home.
  
  
• Children learn most when adult-child interactions are positive. Parent responsiveness to children's language, along with parents' feedback tone and guidance style are strongly associated with children's language and intellectual accomplishments in the earliest years of life (Hart & Risley, 1995). When parents pay attention to their children's words and show appreciation for what is said by giving positive feedback ("Right" "Good"), children learn more from those interactions. We consider this aspect of literacy experiences to be especially important for young families, because some children receive far less positive feedback than is optimal, and because families report feeling less knowledgeable of this aspect of parenting.
  
  Hart and Risley's data (1995) indicate that children from working class and welfare families might receive far fewer positive responses to their behaviors than do children from professional families. Likewise these children are likely to hear more prohibitive and harsh remarks than do their peers from professional families.
  
  In a recent survey of parents of children from birth to three years of age, researchers interviewed over 1,000 parents (ZERO TO THREE, 1997), and reported these findings regarding the nature of adult-child interactions:
  
  
  • Parents feel least knowledgeable about children's emotional and social development (as compared to intellectual & physical development).
    
    
  • Many parents don't have a clear understanding of the importance of quality vs. quantity of stimulation they provide for their children.
    
    

  In all of our materials we emphasize positive interactions. We discuss their importance in the guides. In each set of lessons, we directly teach, model, and prompt families to provide positive feedback and attention to their children and to their accomplishments.