Enriching Early Literacy Experiences with Infants and Toddlers

Introduction Welcome to Enriching Early Literacy Experiences with Infants and Toddlers, hosted by the Center for Early Childhood Professional Development. In this course, we will discuss the theories on how infants and toddlers acquire language and the stages and indicators of language development. We will examine emergent literacy and its connection to lifelong success. We…

Objectives At the end of this training, participants will be able to: Recognize the stages of language development. Define Self-Talk and Parallel Talk and implement both strategies in classroom. Identify examples of recasting and extending language with toddlers. Compose open-ended questions to extend language with young children. Understand the importance of creating an inclusive learning…

Language Development Early verbal communication between infants often consists of unintelligible sounds. It’s important to let these dialogues play out. These early experiences are teaching babies a lot about communication with others! Babies can recognize each other’s emotions within the first 5 months of their lives, and they can correctly match the sounds of happy…

Nativist Approach The Nativist approach to language development simply states that we are born with everything we need to learn and use language. This idea began in the 1950s but became popular in the 1970s with the work of an American linguist and cognitive scientist named Noam Chomsky. Because young children acquire language so quickly…

Social Learning Theory Research in the 1980s indicated that infants have the ability to differentiate any sound in any language but lose that ability by the end of the first year, retaining only those that are used in their daily interactions. This links the nativist approach with that of social learning theory, developed by Albert…

Interactionist Theory The Interactionist theory is based on Lev Vygotsky’s theory of Psychosocial Development. Jerome Bruner, another American psychologist, expanded Vygotsky’s theory to language acquisition. Bruner proposed it is a combination of biological and environmental factors. More than that, simply seeing the language modeled or hearing it spoken is not enough; infants need a social…

Responsive Caregiving Responsive caregiving involves the creation of safe, structured environments with predictable routines and interesting materials to explore, and sensitive, caring and dependable interactions with consistent adult caregivers. The nurturing, protective, and stable relationships that infants and toddlers need with adults are constructed through daily interactions between young children and their caregivers. Positive interactions…

Responsive Care Giving Process Responsive care starts with the ability to recognize, read, and interpret cues from infants, toddlers, and twos. It is care that responds positively to a child’s own needs and signals and helps the child build tolerance for stimulation and new experiences gradually. How caregivers talk is at least as important as…

Strategies for Responsive Caregiving, Interactions and Communication Click on the link below to access a handout with information about different strategies that promote responsive caregiving, effective teacher-child interaction, and communication and language development of infants and toddlers. The handout provides the definition of the effective strategies and describes why they are important for helping young…

Activity: What Do Responsive Caregiving Strategies Look Like in the Classroom? In this activity, you will choose the caregiving action that corresponds with the responsive caregiving strategy and drag the action into the correct box.

Mastering Language To master a spoken language, a child must learn basic sounds, how sounds are combined to form words, how words are combined to form meaningful sentences, what words and sentences mean, and how to use language effectively in social interactions. Language mastery includes phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Let’s review these terms.…

Stages of Language Let’s go over the stages of language development for infants and toddlers according to the NICHD Early Child Care Research Network (2000): Sounds Crying, gurgling, and grunts— important first steps in language development. They are also effective means of communicating with the caregiver. Infants begin making and responding to sounds from birth.…

Culturally Appropriate Practice Language is influenced by culture and the way a person is raised. Keep in mind the following helpful tips regarding culturally appropriate practices:  It is important to be aware of your own social-culture influences and how language development experiences vary from one culture to another.  Connecting with families in a way that…

Language Components Language is divided into five different components in the Oklahoma Early Learning Guidelines for Infants, Toddlers, and Twos (2011). Let’s review the standards and indicators for Communication Skills and Early Literacy in the Guidelines: Receptive Language (Listening): The child will hear and respond to sounds in the environment. The baby may demonstrate awareness of…

Receptive and Expressive Language in Young Infants (0-8 Months) Infants begin communicating with their caregivers at birth. They are comforted by familiar and soothing sounds and intently focus on faces. They communicate their needs by crying and their contentment with cooing. In just a few weeks after birth, they begin to smile when spoken to…

Receptive and Expressive Language in Mobile Infants (6-18 Months) Infants’ receptive language is far more refined at this age. They can understand much of what they hear. This is demonstrated by their ability to follow simple instructions like, “go get your ball.” They recognize the names of familiar objects and respond to their own name.…

Activity: Describing What Self-Talk and Parallel Talk Looks Like in the Classroom Self Talk and Parallel Talk activities help teachers and children develop their relationship. Teachers comment on a child’s actions and they allow the child to lead the activity. Teachers can use Parallel Talk activities to make a child to feel respected and validated.…

Receptive and Expressive Language in Toddlers (16-36 Months) With this age group there is a rapid language acquisition. Toddlers listen, respond and gain new words every day. Receptive language also continues to develop quickly and they can follow two-step instructions. Their mastery of communication also allows them to appreciate and respond to funny comments and…

Caregiver Responses to Enhance Language and Communication Development in Infants *Although infants are tuned into language from birth, they learn language through interactions and imitation. A caregiver that encourages an infant’s efforts at communication and looks for opportunities to communicate with them scaffolds their language development. First and foremost, the caregiver should build a relationship…

Caregiver Responses to Enhance Language and Communication Development in Toddlers *As toddlers become more verbal and begin to use simple phrases, caregivers can use techniques to scaffold their language development. Recasting and expansion are two important tools for supporting toddler language development. Recasting is simply restating the child’s sentence using correct grammar. It does not…

Activity: Extending Language Consider the following sample interaction where an early care and education provider extends the language of toddlers. Afterwards, you will need to record your thoughts and share any similar moments where you have engaged in recasting, extending language or introducing new vocabulary with your students. Example Scenario: During outside play time children…

Open-Ended Questions Open-ended questions have many possible answers. Rather than “Do you think the puppy is sad?” which can be answered with a yes or no, an open-ended question would ask “How do you think the puppy is feeling?” Open-ended questions allow for more meaningful interactions and give children an opportunity to express their feelings…

Emergent Literacy The final component of Language Development is Emergent Literacy. Emergent Literacy includes all of a child’s early experiences that contribute to their ability to eventually learn to read. Infants and toddlers are certainly not expected to read, but they are building the skills that will allow them to read at the appropriate level.…

Promoting Literacy It is important to read, talk and play with children daily. A provider who promotes lots of play, reads lots of books, and talks a lot with (not at) a child is doing all of the right things to promote literacy. Interactions between provider and child are the most important element in developing…

Inclusion Infants and toddlers with special needs related to language can be successful in a traditional early care and education setting with the help of reasonable accommodations and supports. Making reasonable and appropriate accommodations for children is simply meeting the individual needs of children. Something you do in your program every day. Two forms of…

Activity: Inclusion Scenario After reading the following story about Kara and her son Phillip, choose two to three inclusion practices that might be appropriate for Phillip. Phillip is Kara’s quiet eight-month old son. Recently, Kara noticed that Phillip doesn’t seem to respond when she calls his name. Kara asked her own mother about this, and…

Creating Action Steps to Enrich Literacy Language development and emergent literacy are critical to success in school and life. The earlier a provider can set the course for this development will contribute significantly to the child’s success. Responsive caregiving, high-quality learning environments rich in language and print, and lots of opportunities for reading all put…

Wrapping Up Children engage adults and each other in conversation that helps them explain and describe their world. They learn to express their thoughts, feelings, wants, and needs, to problem solve, and to interact positively with peers. Children need models to help them develop these conversation skills. They also need an environment that supports language…

Resources The following resources are listed to provide additional information related to the practices presented in this course. Language Development Bridging the Vocabulary Gap: What Research Tells Us about Vocabulary Instruction in Early Childhood (2010). This article written by Tanya Christ and X. Christine Wang and published by the National Association for the Education of…

Copyright© Copyright by The University of Oklahoma Board of Regents, on behalf of Center for Early Childhood Professional Development References Committee on Integrating the Science of Early Childhood Development. From neurons to neighborhoods: The science of early childhood development. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press; 2000. Dickinson DK. Putting the pieces together: Impact of preschool on…

Post-Test Please complete the course post-test before continuing with the course.  Failure to complete the course post-test will prevent you from completing the course, earning your course completion certificate, and receiving Oklahoma Registry credit.

This is the final lesson of this course. Follow these steps to complete this course and receive your certificate: Make sure that you have completed all of the lessons in this course. Mark this lesson as complete by clicking the “Complete Lesson” button at the bottom of this page. Fill out the form provided on this…