Parent Literacy Childhood Education Kaleena Springsteen.docx

Parent Literacy
Childhood Education
Kaleena Springsteen
ECE 335 Children’s Literature
Carly Davenport
October 30, 2017
Importance of Reading to Young Children
Language skills.
The language used by the parents to the children tend to be
repetitive and limited to vocabularies which are employed daily
in addressing them. Thus, when the parents or the instructors
read for the children, they enable them to have access to new
vocabularies different from topics which comprise of more
words and phrases which they do not hear on a daily basis. It
also allows to learn new languages and develop the fluency
when speaking.
Children lack the reading skills and therefore, it necessary to
guide them. By that, the children will be able to achieve the
following skills.
2
Importance of Reading to Young Children
Improves cognitive abilities
Memory/Long-Term- enables a child to access stored

information
Visual Processing- allows children to think in visual images
Improves concentration
Attention/Sustained- helps children stay focused
Attention/Selective- helps children ignore distractions
1. Reading exposes the child to various brain exercises. These
activities provoke their brains and thus making them start
thinking and understanding things from a broad point of view
and develop their way of reasoning (Kalb, 2014).
2. Reading to young children on a daily basis enables them to
sit still for long periods, and this will be beneficial as they join
school. Usually a child is distracted easily by their surrounding.
3
Benefits of Reading to Young Children
It develops the child’s imagination and creativity
Helping your child to become creative opens their minds up for
great possibilities
Reading is a form of entertainment.
Have one or two nights a week for reading then make up games
to go along with the story
It builds strong relationship between the parent and the child.
When parent spends time by his/her child bedside reading a
book, this creates a bond between the them. Building a bond can
help children grow emotionally.
1. When the parents read to their children, they provoke their
mind to think about the characters, the setting to understand the
flow of the story. Through that, the children are able to improve
the way they choose ideas and think or imagine.
2. For instance, when reading comic books they present funny

events which make the children enjoy the story and even
respond to questions.
3. Sitting down with you child at the end of the day to read,
helps both the parent and the child unwind and relax.
4
Resources for Story/Music Time
Films
There are various films performed purposely targeting the
children. They present funny stories, entertaining events, and
music for preschoolers. The movie can be a source of stories
and music times that are recited to the children.
Linguistic books/novels
Reading of the linguistic books to children help them learn
about their native language quickly. This will enable the
children to understand and efficiently communicate with their
parent as they grow.
Resources for Story/Music Time
Cartoon programs
These are entertainment shows which are meant to entertain
children. They are developed under a certain storyline which is
simple for children to follow. They also employ simple
language and other communication techniques like signals and
symbols to enable the children to get the message quickly.
Internet library.
The internet is another rich resource which comprises of a
variety of materials that can be used for reading to children. It
also gives access to a music galleries which can be used to
entertain the children.
The Criteria for Choosing Appropriate Book for Young
Learners.

Uphold and cultivate values and morals
There are many books available for reading, but some them are
not appropriate for reading to the children. Since some of them
talk about immoral values like sexual behaviors, selfishness,
and theft. Therefore, when selecting books, one should consider
those that help children to choose virtue over evil, build a good
life, and encourage integrity.
When choosing a book for young learners, it is necessary to
check whether it will help the children to develop morally and
develop their language. Therefore, the book should meet the
following qualities (Mayesky, 2014).
7
Learners.
Stimulates creativity and imagination.
The appropriate books for children make them demand to learn
more. Thus, they provoke the mind of the child and stir up
questions about the behaviors of the outcome of their events.
This helps the children to be creative and improve their
imaginations (Lonigan, 2000).
Should be attractive and attention catching.
The books used by the children should not be wordy, and it
should also employ simple vocabularies. The children tend to
concentrate more on the books with attractive images and
simple words.
Learners.
Appeals to the child’s age, maturity, and intellectual levels.
Every book is written while targeting a particular

population under a defined age limit. There are books for
teenage and the adults as well as children.
It is necessary to consider age when choosing a book for
children. Thus, the books for the children should not be too big
with a lot of chapters and hard vocabularies but be simple
attractive and appealing to the children.
9
Types of Books and Their Literacy Levels
Literacy: Tactile
This category includes the routine books. Some of the preferred
books for this literacy include Story Box. This book involves a
visually impaired child. Therefore, when reading this disabled
is necessary to choose such a book to make them feel part of the
family and loved. Other books include The Keeping Quilt by
Patricia Polacco and Will I Have a Friend?
Literacy: Visual
These are used by the children to learn, understand, and count
(Genishi, 2015). They include books like Feast for 10, Bear
counts by Karma Wilson, Counting by Henry Pluckrose. These
are counting books, and they employ different images of objects
like shapes to enable children to hold every item sequentially.

Literacy: Audio
These books help the children to learn about new vocabularies,
sounds, critical listening, and new languages. Some of the
audio books preferred for this purpose include Diary of Wimpy
Kid,
Literacy: Spatial and Gestural
This involves the ability of the child to use the environmental
objects to communicate, to resolve, and solve issues. Some of
the books preferred for spatial literacy include Rosie’s walk by
Pat Hutchins, Up Down Around by Katherine Ayres and Lucy
in the city by Julie.
References
Cognitive Definition. (n.d.). Retrieved October 30, 2017, from
https://www.learningrx.com/cognitive-definition-faq.htm
Genishi, C., & Dyson, A. H. (2015). Children, language, and
literacy: Diverse learners in diverse times. Teachers College
Press.
Kalb, G., & Van Ours, J. C. (2014). Reading to young children:
A head-start in life?. Economics of Education Review, 40, 1-24.

Lonigan, C. J., Burgess, S. R., & Anthony, J. L. (2000).
Development of emergent literacy and early reading skills in
preschool children: evidence from a latent-variable longitudinal
study. Developmental psychology, 36(5), 596.
Mayesky, M. (2014). Creative activities and curriculum for
young children. Cengage Learning.
Lesson Plan
Content Area or Developmental Focus: Early Literacy
Development
Age/Grade of Children: Head Start
Length of Lesson: 45 min
Goal
To teach how to identify characters in a story book.
Objective
The children will be able to successfully identify characters in
different children story books
Standards Included
Head Start Program- Literacy knowledge and skills
development. 1) Book Appreciation and Knowledge- With
guidance and support, recognize how books are read by
identifying characters and their role.

Materials
Story Book- How the Brazilian Beetles Got Their Gorgeous
Coats
by: Elsie Eells
Introduction
Hello friends. Over the past few days, we defined what a story
is, learned different types of stories and why they are important
to each and every one of us. Ask, “Can one of you tell me what
a story is?” Wait for the students to respond and summarize the
definition. Ask again, “What are some of the reasons why
stories are important to us?” Wait for different responses from
the students and summarize the ideas for them. Proceed,
“Today, we are going to learn about one element of stories that
help us in reading various stories. It will be interesting, and at
the end of class you will be eager to identify characters in
various story books.”
Lesson Development
· Define character
· Give the characteristics of character’s in children’s book
· Explain different types of characters
· Explain the contribution of characters in reading a story book
Differentiation
If children master characters, let them try identifying the

characters in the Ivy and Bean book. They should identify how
the characters are represented and the role of the characters in
the story.
Assessment
(Practice/ Checking for
Understanding)
· Together with the kids, read the story of How the Brazilian
Beetles Got Their Gorgeous Coats by Elsie Eells.
· Ask each children a question relating to the characters in the
story
· As the children answers the questions, note their mastering
and understanding of the entire concept about characters. (Do
they understand what characters imply, do they understand the
role of the character, do they identify the characteristics of the
characters in the story, etc.)
· Modify the understanding of the children about the element
using the provisions in the differentiation section where
necessary.
Closing
Summarize the lesson by giving a summary of what the
character is and why it is important to understand about the
characters. Explain to them how the activity you did about
identifying characters in the story How the Brazilian Beetles
Got Their Gorgeous Coats was useful in reading and
understanding the story. Clarify that, to read and understand a
story, everyone should be able to identify the characters in that
specific story. This identification of characters helps us in fully
benefiting from the advantages of the story.

Running head: TELEVISION AND LITERACY
1
Television and literacy
Television and literacy nowadays go hand in hand because
almost every household has television set and children spend
higher percentage of time watching television that playing other
games with their friends out in the field. This behavior means
that even their teachers are forced to be watching popular
programs among the kids so that when they are in class they can
relate and communicate with them easily and with what they
understand. In creating a class newsletter there are several
things that should be considered such as picking a program
heading from the list of television program that has a life story
of children and how they are supposed to be living. For
example,
Hello children,
After school children should go home directly
After school children should help their parent
At home children should be respectful
At home children should obey their parents.
Like how Tom and Jerry do.
With such statements from a popular television program which
the same children understand and have been watching they can
sing along the lines and therefore memorizing the statements
even without getting the exact meaning but we a teacher
introduces a behavior change topic they can easily respond to
the question in relation to the program and because the teacher

have been watching the program then it will be easy to
communicate with the pupils. In the process children will be
active immediately as they hear something they can relate to
and like.
References
Coats, K. (2013). Children's literature & the developing reader.
Electronic Version. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/
ROLE OF LITERATURE 2
Access to literature plays a crucial role in successful
development of children. As a kid, I had access to various
varieties of literature which were vital in shaping me to what I
am currently. Among the values that literature provided to me
was shaping and developing my opinions on issues, enriching
my understanding of my culture and other people, developing
emotional intelligence, encouraging creativity, as well as
fostering personality and social development. These values
shaped the person who I am today. It is through these values I
learned from literature in my childhood that shaped my current
creativity, how I interact with people from different cultures,
and morality.
My parents helped me developing passion and love for reading
literature. Apart from making sure that I had access to various
literature by buying multiple books, they also helped in
teaching me how to learn. At times, they read the literature to
me. They also helped me learn how to read the storybooks.
Among the books that my parents helped me to read are The
Yellow Umbrella (a picture book), and Going Home. At my
young age, I could rarely interpret the readings. However,
through their help, I was not only able to comprehend but also
read on my own.
In summation, my experience with literature is not only helpful
but was also interesting. Many childhood storybooks were very

interesting. Additionally, as discussed, they provided various
values that have been vital in shaping my personality. Through
the help of my parents, early childhood educators, and
community members, I had ample access to various literature
which was not only helpful at my young age but also in the
adult life.
Gestural Literacy in the Prereading Stage: Physical Expressions
of Meaning
For children who are reared by deaf parents or those who have a
disability that will interfere with oral language development,
gesture is essential to literacy acquisition. The features of
American Sign Language (ASL)—that is, its vocabulary and
grammar—develop in much the same way as oral language does
for hearing children. That is, children absorb the language used
in their environment, and, given rich interaction with adults and
siblings, develop a natural facility with the structure and use of
the language that is then somewhat compromised by the
introduction of metalinguistic awareness, as we noted in
Chapter 5.
It is a good thing for all children to learn a few signs as early as
possible, for two reasons. First, young children understand more
than they can say. Their receptive vocabulary (words they
understand) is more advanced than their expressive vocabulary
(words they can say), and motor development and gestural
control precede the ability to produce verbal language, so sign
language can serve as a bridge to prevent the frustration of not
being understood. I remember when a friend called one day and
asked me to teach her daughter the sign for "finished," because
she had taken to clearing her high chair tray with a dramatic
swoop when she didn't want any more food; mom was tired of
cleaning cereal off the walls and ready for her daughter to have
a more controlled communication option!

A second reason for learning signs is that it adds to children's
understanding that concepts, ideas, and emotions can be
symbolized and expressed in multiple ways. Just as children
learn that words and pictures can represent objects, activities,
and emotions, they need to understand that gestures not only
perform actions but also represent them. Several years later,
then, they might read independently a passage like this from
Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things:
Then my dad opened the box.
His whistling stopped.
His breathing stopped.
His feet stopped.
Then he staggered backward.
"WHAAAAAAAAAAT IS THIS?" he wailed. "Johnny Astro,
what happened to you?" he cried.
Then he really cried. He put his head in his hands, and his
shoulders went up and down. (Look, 2008, pp. 90–91)
With a strong sense of gestural literacy, children can get a true
sense of just how upset Alvin's father is by the way he uses his
body. When you stop whistling, you might be sort of upset.
When your breathing stops and you stagger backward, it's much
worse. But when you cry and your shoulders move up and down,
you are not just a little upset; you are sobbing. Understanding
that gestures communicate feelings and actions enables children
to picture scenes as they read them and feel the emotions of the
characters along with them. In fact, being able to read and
understand the language of gestures is one of the strongest ways
to create empathy, which is a crucial skill for building

relationships and developing personal character as well as
becoming a strong reader (Keen, 2010).
There are many books on sign language for babies readily
available in the child care section of the bookstore, but the most
useful signs to begin with are the ones for "eat," "more," and
"finished." Useful, everyday signs can be found at this website
by clicking on the dictionary and typing in the word you want:
http://lifeprint.com/. Teaching sign language to babies is
accomplished simply by accompanying the activity itself and
your verbal expression of the word with the sign every time you
use it. Interestingly, studies have shown that early signing
actually improves verbal fluency when children do begin to
speak, possibly because they have been using an accessible form
of expressive communication all along.
Learning the Meanings of Facial Expressions and Body
Movements
Gestural literacy is not limited to signing. In fact, we all use
gestures as a natural part of our communication; facial
expression, hand gestures, eye movements, nods and head
shaking or tilting are all gestures that are integral to
communicating our meaning. As children grow in their social
environment, they learn to read and reproduce these gestures.
They also have to learn what gestures and body movements are
socially appropriate in various settings. As with language
development, adults and siblings provide models, direct
instruction, and feedback during the learning process, and
children test their gestures and adapt them according to the
responses they receive.
Gestural literacy is important when it comes to understanding
visual information and making inferences from print texts. For
instance, in Anthony Browne's How Do You Feel? (2011), the
character demonstrates a range of feelings. In each picture,
Browne changes the colors, body postures, and size of the

character to provide a visual representation of a feeling. For
instance, when the character is happy, the colors are bright with
high contrast, and the character is shown in a wide-legged,
open-armed stance. The pocket on his overalls is even shaped
into a smile with buttons for eyes. By contrast, when the
character is scared, his pant legs are outlined with jiggly lines,
and his arms are pulled close to his body. These body postures
and colors, accompanied by a word that describes the feeling,
produce a montage that forms an association and creates
meaning. When I am happy, I feel expansive, wide open, and
big; but when I am scared, I feel small, closed in, and shaky.
Learning these codes of visual and gestural style is both a
biological and a social achievement. It's biological because our
bodies respond to situations in physical ways. For instance,
when we have to give a performance, many of us experience
stage fright. We literally shake with fear. This is because our
muscles want to contract—to regress into a fetal position that
protects our body from perceived outside threats. When we
force them not to do this, the muscles contract involuntarily
with the effort, and we shake as a result. When children are
extremely happy, they are likely to express it physically by
jumping up and down, which is another way to release nervous
energy.
Learning these visual and gestural codes is also a social and
cultural achievement because we mirror postures that we see as
expressing meaning. Two-year-olds mug for the camera in
specific ways because they have learned the codes of picture-
taking from watching others and looking at pictures. Children
pretending to be monsters do so in very stylized and remarkably
similar ways, considering that monsters are imaginary and thus
could take on any number of postures. So gestural style is a
combination of innate and learned behaviors, and these
behaviors assist literacy development in two ways: (a) by being
an expression of meaning all by themselves, and (b) by enabling

children to infer meaning from the suggestion of gestures in
print and visual representations.
Gesture's Role in Establishing Rituals
Another crucial aspect of gestural literacy is its role in creating
a sense of ritual. So much of human activity takes place in a
ritual format—domestic habits of dining together and preparing
for bed, waiting in line, communal gathering and listening,
playing on teams, going to church—that much of parenting and
schooling involves teaching children to participate in and adjust
to the patterns of ritual behavior. In ritual, we must attune our
bodies to others participating in the ritual activity. This creates
a sense of community and helps soothe anxiety, because our
own emotional states are regulated, mirrored, and affirmed by
the presence of others sharing those emotional states.
Parents, caregivers, and educators facilitate participation in
rituals by teaching young children songs, chants, and action
rhymes; by establishing a time and place for reading; and by
adopting a reading voice (which is noticeably different from a
getting-ready voice or a playing voice or a I've-just-about-had-it
voice). These special uses of gesture and language require that
children adjust their movements, rhythms, and volume so that
they are in step with others, or in the case of personal rituals, in
step with a preestablished pattern. Researchers believe that this
attunement is one of the reasons why we engage in ritual in the
first place, because it relieves stress by regulating our bodies
and hearkening back to the sense of communicative musicality
and connectedness we felt with our early caregivers
(Dissanayake, 2009; Eckerdal&Merker, 2009).
One of the most important aspects of the ritual of reading
together is the development of joint attention, as we discussed
in Chapter 1. Joint attention is facilitated by pointing, which,
surprisingly enough, is a gesture most babies can do very early,

although parents don't likely recognize it until they are looking
for it. But pointing is essential for the development of language
as well as other aspects of literacy development, such as
learning that things can be represented in different ways. For
instance, pointing to a picture of a baby's nose while saying
"nose" and touching the baby's nose, encodes three registers—
the image, the sound, and the touch—for the concept of nose.
Soon enough, the baby will come to realize that the sound
"nose" refers to a picture of noses and the baby's own nose, and
this will set the stage for understanding that the letters n-o-s-e
are yet another way of referring to the same concept.
Goals, Methods, and Materials for Promoting Gestural Literacy
Because children are natural mimics, gestural literacy can be
modeled, pointed out, and discussed, rather than taught through
direct instruction. Most well-illustrated storybooks that feature
characters offer an opportunity to discuss gestures and what
they look like. The most explicit instruction for the children's
own gestural literacy will likely come through negative
feedback, where children are told not to behave in a certain way
in a certain place or time. In most settings, though, children will
take on the behaviors of those around them. For instance, if
children sit with their parents in church, they will eventually
learn to sit and stand at the appropriate times, sing when others
sing, and remain quiet when others are quiet. A similar pattern
of routines develops in classrooms as well.
It is important, though, that gestural literacy be intentionally
used to enhance communication and ritual behavior. This is
where dramatic play comes in. Acting out stories is not only
great fun but it helps develop cooperative behaviors and
planning skills; and it encourages literacy skills such as
fluency, character understanding, and story arcs.
Teaching Ideas: Gestural Literacy

Reading Aloud
Overemphasize your own gestures when reading or telling a
story—be a ham!
When reading, point to objects and encourage children to point
so that they can develop the skill of shared attention.
Talk about pictures of characters in books. Ask how the
character is feeling and how the children know how he is
feeling from the picture.
Have children imitate the gesture of a character in a book, and
ask how they feel while they are doing it. Remind them that this
is how the character must feel as well.
Games, Action Rhymes, and Finger Plays
Increase your repertoire of action rhymes and finger plays to
teach to children. The upcoming list "Recommended Books:
Professional Resources for Storytimes and Action Rhymes"
suggests a few sources.
Play Feelings Charades: Whisper a feeling to a child and have
that child act out that feeling while the other children guess
what the feeling is. Alternately, have them act out an action,
such as eating an apple or swimming. Later in the year, once
you have shared many books with them, have them act out a
character from a book you have read.
Play the Pass-It-On game: Arrange children in a circle. Have
them pass an imaginary object from one person to another,
imagining how it would feel—a hot potato, a baby, a porcupine,
a heavy object. When each child has had a turn passing the
object, call out, or have the children call out, a new object to
pass.
Play the Mirror game: Divide children up in pairs. One of each
pair is the mirror. The mirror has to imitate the actions and
expressions of the partner. After a few minutes, have children
switch roles.
Dance and Drama
Have free dance time every day. Use different types of music,
and make sure you join in the dancing. Don't worry about
looking silly.

Invite community dancers in to demonstrate and teach their
skills. Alternately, call a dance school and ask if you can visit
the studio. Dance schools will often offer a free class for a day
care since they are usually not busy during the day.
Stage a play. This may seem ambitious, but it's really quite
doable for preschoolers. Have the children choose a story, and
then decide what characters, costumes, and props they will
need. Ask for volunteers for parts. Since they are not yet
readers, you may choose to narrate, or the children could
provide their own dialogue. Practice, practice, practice, and
encourage them to reflect on and critique their performance,
thinking about how they could make it better. Then invite
parents in for the performance!
Photo Book of Facial Expressions
Have children make a list of emotions: surprise, anger,
happiness, sadness, confusion, etc. Then have them experiment
with making faces to show these emotions. Take digital photos
of their faces making the expressions, and put them in a book.
Coats, K. (2013). Children’s literature & the developing
reader [Electronic version]. Retrieved from
https://content.ashford.edu/
Well crafted picture books have different elements that make
them outstanding and most effective for the targeted kids. These
elements are color, shape, line and texture, characters and icons,
composition and point of view. These elements enable the
teacher or parent in identifying how good or why the kids may
like the book. Again, these elements assist in teaching children
who are ready so as to become competent in not only spatial
literacy, but also gestural and visual literacies. This discussion
will analyze how these elements work in accomplishing the
above mentioned objectives. Again, it will highlight how I have
applied these elements in crafting a picture book.
The most significant element of picturebooks is color. There

are three basic aspects of color which are hue, shade, and
saturation. Hue refers to the color spectrum. There are basically
two classification of hue; warm and cool. Warm hue includes
red, orange, and yellow, while cool hue includes green, blue,
purple, and brown. Shade of color refers to the mixing of color
with white or black. Saturation is the degree of purity of the
color. Through using color, an effective illustrator strategically
complements the story’s meaning hence assisting children to
trace the narrative (Coats, 2013).
Shapes are also vital elements that can be used to convey
feelings in literature. For instance, a triangle which rests at its
base makes the reader feel more at easy while a triangle resting
on its point on its danger of falling create uneasiness. Different
shapes of lines also evoke different feelings. Horizontal lines
may evoke stability and comfort, while vertical lines may make
the reader to feel confined and powerless. Circles evoke the
feeling of comfort and sense of completeness (Coats, 2013).
Different color and shapes of lines convey various messages. To
separate figures from background, lines can be used. Again, to
show unstable or energy, bright contrasting lines are used. They
are also employed in creating the sense of picture; for example,
curved lines around the feet of a character shows motion, while
wavy lines around the head may indicate confusion, anger, or
dizziness (Coats, 2013).
Texture does not only aid in representation of the book, but also
its physical characteristics. While brush strokes show the sense
of seriousness, watercolors evoke a light feeling (Coats, 2013).
Texture also evokes the desire to touch hence attracting kids to
the book.
Characters and icons are the player in the story. Icons, line
drawings with flat color that only slightly depict what they
represent, are sometimes used to represent characters. Through
an icon, the ideas, philosophies, emotions, and entities are
depicted (Coats, 2013). The factor that icons are not tired to
specific culture, they give the character a universal feeling. For
successive identification of readers, the illustrator has to

position the characters and objects in a manner that it allows
them to view the scene. Last but not least, the elements have to
be arranged in relation to each other. This lining is known as
composition. It conveys the story message, hence helping the
flow of the book (Coats, 2013).
All these factors have been considered when crafting my picture
book. Various colors have been employed to meet the
objectives. My book integrates both cool and warm colors.
However, the warm colors are used extensively hence showing
the book is most effective for young children. Similarly, all
other elements have been used to meet the specific aims.
Attached below is the link to my book
https://storybird.com/books/cwq6mbza8p/?token=cnhxhqgaxy .
References
Coats, K. (2013). Children's literature & the developing
reader. Electronic Version. Retrieved from
Surname 4
Part 1
1. Title and author of your chosen story
· The Arab and His Camel By Dog Sultan
2. The reason why you selected the story
I chose this story because it has some moral lessons for kids to
be conscious about people who pretend to be good yet they have
ill motives.
3. The steps you will take to prepare your story for telling
For this story, I will take the step of providing images of the
camel and the Arab master so that the kids get the picture of
what I will be talking about.
4. Things to consider when performing the story

When performing the story, I will consider the tonal variation.
In this case, I will use a rough tone to symbolize the Camel and
a normal tone with an Arabic ascent to symbolize the master. I
will also use body language like frowning to show the anger if
the master at the end of the story.
5. How will you model good story telling to your students
I have to develop some aspects so that my students gain a good
story telling skill. One, I will teach them how to tell stories
before an audience whereby they have to avoid being shy and
present the story in an interesting way. They have to apply
facial expressions, body language, tonal variations and
exaggerate some parts to make the story more interesting.
6. The specific culminating question about the story
The questions that I will ask after telling the story is “what are
the lessons learnt from this story?”
What did you notice at the beginning of the story?
Who looks foolish in the story?
7. Which common core standard for K-5
The common core state standards important for this lesson
include asking a question to demonstrate the understanding of
the question, recounting stories and describing characters of the
story.
Part 2
Discuss ways in which we use alphabetic in our daily lives
Alphabetic principle is the application of letters and
sounds to retrieve pronunciation. We use this principle in our
daily lives while talking many words and phrases. This is
because in everything that we say, it has pronunciation where
there is a mixture of letters and wounds in each word. This
makes sense in the words we speak. The examples have been

provided in the video whereby the children choose a shape like
a vest, and then she is asked what she has chosen and what
sound it starts with, an amazing example to the kids.
Review of the book chosen
The book I have chosen is titled Effective Ways to Build
Your Vocabulary written by Johnson O’Connor. The book is
addressing the steps to better vocabulary to any learning
beginner at any age. The book also provides other vocabulary
building materials including story books, tapes and CDs with
English movies or tutorials about vocabulary. Definitely this
book meets my assigned criteria because it provides
mechanisms of building up one’s vocabulary with the
perspective of enhancing their career in any field. The book has
full of motivations like increasing the learning pace of an
individual needs dedicated and consistent approach which I feel
is an important part for one to know when learning vocabulary.
It has also the techniques of mastering and improving
vocabulary by advising readers to use dictionaries and have
consistency in reading story books with other comprehensive
materials like news articles, newspapers and magazines so that
their vocabulary can improve. It also has the techniques of
study and ere review on a regular basis so that vocabulary
becomes part and parcel of an individual and thus masters and
improves his/her vocabulary. I can use this book in class to
teach how to improve vocabulary skills by initially using the
vocabulary words provided in it and then apply all the
techniques mentioned in the book to improve the vocabulary
skills of the students.
Works cited
Dog Sultan. The Arab and His Camel. A collection of short
stories. Last republication 2012.
O’Connor, J (2016) Effective Ways to Build Your Vocabulary.
Aptitude Testing and Research since the 1992 in language.

6.1 Visual Literacy in the Prereading Stage: Seeing the World
and the Self
Unlike hearing, the sense of vision does not develop before
birth. In fact, it takes an entire year for babies to acquire a
mature sense of vision, which means that the right experiences
at the right time can make a real difference. Fortunately, most
of these experiences rely on biological processes that occur
naturally and don't require specific types of stimuli, but it is
important to be aware of these normal processes in order to
detect problems early. In terms of developing visual literacy,
however, it is also important to understand the psychoanalytic
importance of vision as well as the biological sense so that we
have a complex understanding of the importance of image in a
developing child's life.
At birth, babies don't see well at all. In fact, their focal length
is only about 8 inches, which is typically how close a mother or
other caregiver holds them while feeding or cuddling. You can
see how elegant this design is if you consider the wealth of
visual information that surrounds us on a daily basis. Imagine
how chaotic and over stimulating the world would be to new
babies if they could see it all! By only being able to really see
the faces and things closest to them, they can shut out
extraneous stimuli until their brains are sufficiently developed
to cope with and categorize the vast amount of visual content in
a single environment.
The blurriness of their vision may also help us understand what
psychoanalysts believe is characteristic of early experience.
Freud and his followers theorized that infants experience the
world as an extension of themselves. Chapter 5 referred to the
dual relation between the mother and the child in the fourth

trimester; if babies can't clearly see the distinctions between
themselves and other people and things, they probably don't
have a clear sense of boundaries between themselves and the
objects that touch them. This sense that they are not separate
and alone but part of the world at large lays the foundation for a
sense of trust and belonging.
Books like Mem Fox's Time for Bed (1993) and Denise
Fleming's Sleepy, Oh So Sleepy (2010) visually reinforce this
sense of belonging by featuring baby animals snuggled close to
their parents in environments especially suited for them. While
these books are deeply invested in Erikson's initial stage of trust
vs. distrust for children under 2 years old, older preschool
children benefit from the reminder of their connectedness to
loved ones and the world, especially at night or before a nap,
when they will be alone. A book that features a similar visual
message for older children (4 and up) is Joyce Carol Thomas's
Brown Honey in Broomwheat Tea (1995). Floyd Cooper's
illustrations in this book emphasize the family's connections to
each other and to their natural environment. Even though
children's vision after about 4 months old is no longer blurry,
unconscious memories of that time created by illustrations
where characters blend in with their pictorial worlds provide
strength and comfort by evoking a sense of belonging.
Visual Development in the First 6 Months
Babies also literally cannot see what's in front of them,
especially for the first two months. Rather, because of the
immature development of the physical features of the eye, they
can see only what is on the edges of their visual field. We call
this peripheral vision. Again, consider the way a baby is held
while being fed. The bottle or breast is right in front of their
nose, but the mother's or caregiver's face is off to the side, so
they are able to see it better there than if the mother was
holding them face to face.

Babies can recognize their mother's face from a few hours after
birth, and they do prefer it over other faces, but they are also
generally better at seeing a slowly moving face (a face that's
talking or singing to them) than a stationary one. They can track
slow movement of an object, especially if it starts in their
peripheral vision, though they tend to lose it when it passes
directly in front of their eyes. Babies also have trouble seeing
things unless they contrast highly with their background.
Researchers speculate that this is why babies can see faces—the
parts of the face such as eyes, brows, hairlines, and mouths
contrast with the skin around them and are more often than not
in motion (Eliot, 1999).
What all this means for visual literacy is that, for the first two
months anyway, babies are listening to people reading to them,
but they are not looking at the book unless that book is full of
things they can see, such as high contrast, patterned blocks of
color or black and white, held off to the side but still close to
the baby's eyes. Babies at this age also become bored with
visual stimuli fairly quickly and are attracted to new stimuli
rather than things they have seen before, with the exception, of
course, of family faces.
Right at 2 months, however, babies' eye apparatuses have
developed to the point where they can stare straight ahead and
for a brief time can't do anything else. This phenomenon is
called "obligatory looking" because the baby appears to be
unable to exercise any control over her eye movements (Eliot,
1999, p. 215). This compulsion to stare fixedly at whatever is in
front of the baby's sight line is great for bonding with a parent
or sibling who is gazing back at the baby, but not so great if the
stimuli is painful, like a bright light, so it's something to take
advantage of but also to be on the lookout for.
Between the ages of 3 and 6 months, babies regain the ability to
control their eye movement, and now it's even better than

before. Now they can not only track objects but they start to be
able to anticipate the path of the object, looking a little ahead of
it as it moves. This is a significant development, because it
indicates that babies can now choose where they want to look.
From this point forward, visual acuity develops rapidly; the
blurriness recedes, and babies are able to focus on things that
are farther away.
Growth in acuity continues until a child is 5 years old, but the
most marked development occurs during the first six months if
there are no problems such as congenital cataracts, a clouding
that can obstruct the passage of light, or strabismus, which is a
condition in which the eyes are not aligned with each other,
preventing them from focusing on the same point in space. By 3
months old, normally developing babies can see all of the basic
color distinctions that adults can, and with the growth in acuity
comes a higher degree of contrast sensitivity, which means that
babies can begin to see less saturated shades of color such as
pastels, though they still prefer highly saturated colors until
they are 8 or 9 years old (Winner, 1982, p. 139). Interestingly,
4-month-olds actually begin developing what's known as
hyperacuity, which is an ability to notice detail at a level that
should not be possible given the physical properties of the eye
but helps explain why young children are so sensitive to small
details in pictures that adults usually screen out as unimportant.
While 4 months old is probably too early to bring on the
Where's Waldo? books, it is certainly time to share board books
with high-contrast, high-interest illustrations, such as Vicky
Ceelen's captivating photo books of baby/animal doubles (Baby!
Baby!, 2008; Baby Nose to Baby Toes, 2009) or The Global
Fund for Children's colorful Global Babies (2006).
The ability to see in 3-D also develops in the first four months
of life. In a baby's first few months, input from each eye is
channeled separately and competes for space within the baby's
brain. If the competition is fair, that is, if both eyes are capable
of seeing equally well, then the visual cortex develops an equal

amount of space for processing the input for each eye, and then
it recombines the input to produce a binocular, or three-
dimensional, effect. If something goes wrong during the critical
period of development, however, due to strabismus or some
other interference, then binocular vision is permanently
disabled. In some ways, however, this helps explain a child's
ability to recognize two-dimensional drawings, such as icons, as
representations of three-dimensional objects. The path of
development indicates that parts of our brains are prewired for
two-dimensional viewing and that while we develop the
capacity for three-dimensional vision, the new system doesn't
entirely replace the old.
In terms of sharing books with infants, then, the principles that
we discussed in Chapter 3 are relevant here: Babies respond
best to high-contrast, brightly colored images that are either
two-dimensional or photographic in their representation. They
crave patterns early, because their brains are developing their
visual centers and patterns help establish neural pathways that
are relevant to their cultural experience. For instance, studies
have shown that children who lived in "carpentered"
environments—that is, houses or apartments—are more
sensitive to horizontal and vertical angles, while children reared
in a traditional Canadian Indian village where the families live
in teepees have a greater visual awareness of diagonal lines
(Annis & Frost, 1973). This demonstrates how experience with
visual culture makes a difference in how we see, and argues for
enrichment of the visual space in order to develop an expansive
visual literacy.
Vision and the Development of a Sense of Self
Vision is also vitally important in terms of developing a sense
of self. Indeed, Freudian psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan proposed
that our understanding of self is predominantly a result of
interaction with visual images (2006). Somewhere between the

ages of 6 and 18 months, babies recognize themselves in a
mirror. This marks an important time in a baby's life that Lacan
called the "mirror stage." As we've discussed, babies don't quite
have a sense that the various parts of their bodies are wholly
theirs, and they don't quite understand where their body stops
and the rest of the world starts. Thus they experience the
mother's body or their blanket as an extension of their own
bodies. When they recognize themselves in the mirror, a
significant change takes place in their self-understanding. The
image they see in the mirror does in fact seem whole and
complete, and, because of their visual development, it's no
longer blurry. It has complete boundaries and is a separate
being.
Most importantly, though, the baby in the mirror seems
competent and independent. Whereas, for instance, a baby might
hit herself in the head accidentally because she lacks fully
competent motor control, the baby in the mirror appears to be
moving its parts intentionally, more like the others the baby has
been observing for the past several months. So the baby is very
excited to discover herself in the mirror, because that baby in
the mirror is much more like the others the baby sees than she is
like the self she feels herself to be. Of course there is a great
deal of speculation involved in this theoretical model because
babies can't tell us what they feel or think, but Lacan's
speculations about infants are borne out by the way we continue
to use mirror images for the rest of our lives. We often use
mirrors to check what we look like, how we appear, regardless
of how we actually feel.
Lacan also stresses that the recognition of the baby in the mirror
as the self requires an identification with the image; that baby
over there is somehow the same as "me" over here. Books with
mirrors in them most often reinforce this identification through
the use of identifying words; they will show a series of objects
before they show a mirror and indicate to the baby (through the
person reading to him or her) that the mirror image is the baby.

This is, of course, both true and not true; the baby in the mirror
is an image of the baby. But the baby is fascinated by that
image, and, like adult dancers or fitness trainers, he uses that
mirror image to self-correct, to organize movements, to see if
what the facial expression or gesture feels like is in fact what it
looks like. Physical and occupational therapy environments for
special needs children often make full use of this fascination by
lining the lower walls with mirrors so that children get visual
reinforcement for their actions; this technique would be useful
for classroom design for neurotypical children as well. Once
children recognize the image, they come to rely on it even more
than they rely on what their bodies are telling them. Mirror
images help them feel stable and continuous even if their bodies
aren't cooperating. They use their mirror images as models for
what they feel and how they see themselves and others.
According to Lacan, this sets a mental structure in place; from
then on, babies (and adults) use images more than sensual
experience to organize their world and their sense of self.
We can synthesize this way of thinking about development with
Erik Erikson's stage model. As discussed in earlier chapters,
Erikson identified the first stage of psychosocial development
as one of developing trust in the environment and the
caregivers. This sense of trust is reinforced through consistent
care, touch, and vocal reassurances. Once trust has been
established, however, the baby experiences a growing need for
autonomy and independence according to Erikson's stage model.
This corresponds to Lacan's idea that the baby is attracted to the
seeming independence and self-control of the baby in the
mirror. It also corresponds to what we have discussed about the
physical ability of the baby to move away from the mother,
separation anxiety, and the ability to represent an absent object
with a mental image and a word. In Lacan's articulation of the
mirror stage, the baby's first sense of autonomy is found in the
visual image.
Erikson places this stage at around 2–3 years, and contrasts

autonomy with shame—that is, the project of children in this
developmental stage is to get control over their bodies and
achieve an early sense of independence, and if they can't, they
experience shame and self-doubt. The problem, of course, is
that bodies are hard to get control of, and hence the image,
which appears to be in control, is much more attractive than the
body the child is struggling to master.
The result, according to Lacan, is that we start to develop our
identity by relying more on images than on our own feelings.
This has huge implications for visual literacy. Children's
literature researchers have emphasized for years that children
need to "see themselves in books," because if they don't, they
feel devalued by mainstream culture and invisible (Chall,
Radwin, French, & Hall, 1979; Larrick, 1965; Sims, 1982).
Underlying this assumption is the psychic structure that we have
just described; it isn't just in the mirror that we look for images
to identify or disidentify with, but everywhere. Babies love to
look at books that feature other babies because those babies are
models for imitation, and they help shore up a baby's
developing sense of self. But their visual acuity means that they
are sensitive to skin color and facial features, so it is important
to use books that feature a diverse set of baby models. These
babies will also provide models for action and the expression of
emotions. They expand the realm of possibility for actions and
emotions as well. As adults point out facial expressions and
gestures to the baby and code them with words that represent
them, they reinforce the structure of personal identification with
representations in books, an important literacy skill to develop.
As children grow older, their developmental needs evolve to
include images of children engaging in activities that they can
imitate, as well as stories that excite their imaginations and
expand their possibilities for pretend play and personal
identification. As they move into Erikson's third stage of
initiative vs. guilt (around 3–5 years old), they engage in the

kinds of imaginative play that makes them feel powerful. They
might play "house," for instance, so that they get the chance to
decide what's for dinner and when it's time for bed, or they
might go further afield and play at occupations or fantasy
quests.
The books they need and prefer at this stage show child
characters behaving more independently and playing with
power. For instance, Mini Grey's Traction Man character, who
is featured in three books so far (Traction Man Is Here, 2005;
Traction Man Meets Turbo Dog, 2008; and Traction Man and
the Beach Odyssey, 2012), shows the kind of imaginative play a
child can engage in with an action figure and ordinary
household objects. Picturebook presentations of folk tales, such
as Julius Lester's and Jerry Pinkney's Sam and the Tigers: A
Retelling of Little Black Sambo (1996) are also popular at this
age as they often show less-powerful characters overcoming
obstacles. Finally, domestic stories of common problems, such
as those confronted by Russell Hoban's Frances (Bedtime for
Frances, 1960; A Birthday for Frances, 1968; Bread and Jam for
Frances, 1964) and Lauren Child's Charlie and Lola (I Will
Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato, 2000; I Am Not Sleepy and I
Will Not Go to Bed, 2001; I Am Absolutely Too Small for
School, 2003) are appealing because they help children see that
their situations, such as not wanting to go to bed, coping with
jealous or anxious feelings, establishing food preferences, and
so forth, are not unique.
Goals, Methods, and Materials for Promoting Visual Literacy
As young children become more experienced with visual
representations of people, places, and things, different elements
of a picture will take on meaning. This is where conversation
with adults is key. Using the knowledge of how pictures work,
adults can talk with children about how they read the pictures—
what they see, how they feel about what they see, and why they

feel that way.
As we noted in Chapter 5, it is important to pay attention to
what and how children like to play. You will want to then find
books that represent those activities so that children understand
that books are places where they can find things they like.
Concept books are especially important at this stage, because
children are not only learning about themselves, but they are
also amassing a huge amount of visual information about the
world, and they are discerning enough to detect even small
differences, which will help them with the abstract skill of
categorizing as well as the important visual literacy skill of
differentiation among details.
Hand in hand with viewing visual materials is creating them.
Provide children with a range of artistic materials and the
support they need to use them, paying attention to
developmental abilities. Very young children, for instance, can
work with edible "paints" such as chocolate or butterscotch
pudding, although all materials should be nontoxic. Encourage
children to imitate their favorite pictures—don't worry that this
will stifle their creativity. Imitation, after all, is the first way
we learn anything, with innovation coming after. As children
grow older, expand the kinds of art materials they have access
to so that they can experiment with collage art, colored pencils,
chalk, and paints in imitation of their favorite picturebook
artists.
As adults share books with very young children, then, there are
certain goals to keep in mind with regard to visual literacy in
the prereading stage. As with audio and linguistic literacy at
this stage, the goal is not so much to push children into early
recognition of print, although distinguishing between the
symbols that carry writing and the pictures will likely happen
along the way. Instead, the goals have to do with helping
children develop visual acuity, that is, strengthening their
attention to pictorial detail (although it will likely be far better
than yours, so it's unclear who will be teaching whom!), pattern

recognition, and culturally informed color meanings.
You are also sensitizing them to the visual codes and values of
their culture, so it is important to include a range of diverse
images. This does not mean you reject a book that includes
characters of only one race or ethnicity or that features mothers
in aprons. Instead, the important thing is the range and
aggregate of visual literacy experiences, so pay close attention
to the images across the range of books you share, making sure
you include books with characters of all ethnicities and genders,
as well as positive portrayals of children with disabilities.
Different artistic styles are also important to introduce at this
stage, as this is when young children are absorbing and storing
the visual images they will work with as they engage with texts
that paint word pictures rather than illustrated texts.
Teaching Ideas: Visual Literacy
Classroom Design
Create zones in your space that are organized by color.
Minimize visual clutter.
Introduce a shape and then have children find examples of that
shape throughout the environment.
Have a class mascot—a small, colorful figure that is cut out and
laminated. Put the figure in a different place each day, and give
a small prize to the child who finds it first.
Place interesting visual materials at different eye levels around
the space. For instance, place the panels for a sequential story
on the wall at crawling height.
Play the DVDs of BBC's Planet Earth and Frozen Planet,
without sound, in a corner of the room. The stunning visuals
will captivate young viewers who are interested in the natural
world.
Look at a few of the books from Joseph Slate's and Ashley
Wolff's Miss Bindergarten series. Look closely at the classroom
design and the types of activities that are depicted, and draw

ideas from these illustrations.
Visual Activities
Play visual discrimination games, such as those found here:
http://www.eyecanlearn.com/
http://barbarasmithoccupationaltherapist.com/visualperceptual.h
tml
http://www.ehow.com/video_4403215_teaching-visual-
discrimination -montessori.html
Use simple patterns at snack time—an apple slice, a piece of
cheese, an apple slice, a piece of cheese on a plate. Have
children create the pattern and position the food.
Encourage sorting tasks—small objects, types of toys.
Provide lots of books with differing artistic styles. Talk about
the illustrations as you share the story. Never rush through a
reading; instead, invite lingering over illustrations and attention
to detail. Listen to the children and practice shared attention.
Encourage imitation of artwork. Provide a range of art supplies
and encourage experimentation.
Lead children through visualization exercises to develop their
"inner eye." Have them close their eyes and remember their
bedrooms from that morning. What did they see when they woke
up? What color are their pajamas? Their sheets? What toys do
they have in their room? This activity can also be done after
you have read the children a story—have them close their eyes
and lead them through remembering details from the book.
6.2 Gestural Literacy in the Prereading Stage: Physical
Expressions of Meaning
For children who are reared by deaf parents or those who have a
disability that will interfere with oral language development,
gesture is essential to literacy acquisition. The features of
American Sign Language (ASL)—that is, its vocabulary and
grammar—develop in much the same way as oral language does

for hearing children. That is, children absorb the language used
in their environment, and, given rich interaction with adults and
siblings, develop a natural facility with the structure and use of
the language that is then somewhat compromised by the
introduction of metalinguistic awareness, as we noted in
Chapter 5.
It is a good thing for all children to learn a few signs as early as
possible, for two reasons. First, young children understand more
than they can say. Their receptive vocabulary (words they
understand) is more advanced than their expressive vocabulary
(words they can say), and motor development and gestural
control precede the ability to produce verbal language, so sign
language can serve as a bridge to prevent the frustration of not
being understood. I remember when a friend called one day and
asked me to teach her daughter the sign for "finished," because
she had taken to clearing her high chair tray with a dramatic
swoop when she didn't want any more food; mom was tired of
cleaning cereal off the walls and ready for her daughter to have
a more controlled communication option!
A second reason for learning signs is that it adds to children's
understanding that concepts, ideas, and emotions can be
symbolized and expressed in multiple ways. Just as children
learn that words and pictures can represent objects, activities,
and emotions, they need to understand that gestures not only
perform actions but also represent them. Several years later,
then, they might read independently a passage like this from
Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things:
Then my dad opened the box.
His whistling stopped.
His breathing stopped.

His feet stopped.
Then he staggered backward.
"WHAAAAAAAAAAT IS THIS?" he wailed. "Johnny Astro,
what happened to you?" he cried.
Then he really cried. He put his head in his hands, and his
shoulders went up and down. (Look, 2008, pp. 90–91)
With a strong sense of gestural literacy, children can get a true
sense of just how upset Alvin's father is by the way he uses his
body. When you stop whistling, you might be sort of upset.
When your breathing stops and you stagger backward, it's much
worse. But when you cry and your shoulders move up and down,
you are not just a little upset; you are sobbing. Understanding
that gestures communicate feelings and actions enables children
to picture scenes as they read them and feel the emotions of the
characters along with them. In fact, being able to read and
understand the language of gestures is one of the strongest ways
to create empathy, which is a crucial skill for building
relationships and developing personal character as well as
becoming a strong reader (Keen, 2010).
There are many books on sign language for babies readily
available in the child care section of the bookstore, but the most
useful signs to begin with are the ones for "eat," "more," and
"finished." Useful, everyday signs can be found at this website
by clicking on the dictionary and typing in the word you want:
http://lifeprint.com/. Teaching sign language to babies is
accomplished simply by accompanying the activity itself and
your verbal expression of the word with the sign every time you
use it. Interestingly, studies have shown that early signing
actually improves verbal fluency when children do begin to
speak, possibly because they have been using an accessible form
of expressive communication all along.

Learning the Meanings of Facial Expressions and Body
Movements
Gestural literacy is not limited to signing. In fact, we all use
gestures as a natural part of our communication; facial
expression, hand gestures, eye movements, nods and head
shaking or tilting are all gestures that are integral to
communicating our meaning. As children grow in their social
environment, they learn to read and reproduce these gestures.
They also have to learn what gestures and body movements are
socially appropriate in various settings. As with language
development, adults and siblings provide models, direct
instruction, and feedback during the learning process, and
children test their gestures and adapt them according to the
responses they receive.
Gestural literacy is important when it comes to understanding
visual information and making inferences from print texts. For
instance, in Anthony Browne's How Do You Feel? (2011), the
character demonstrates a range of feelings. In each picture,
Browne changes the colors, body postures, and size of the
character to provide a visual representation of a feeling. For
instance, when the character is happy, the colors are bright with
high contrast, and the character is shown in a wide-legged,
open-armed stance. The pocket on his overalls is even shaped
into a smile with buttons for eyes. By contrast, when the
character is scared, his pant legs are outlined with jiggly lines,
and his arms are pulled close to his body. These body postures
and colors, accompanied by a word that describes the feeling,
produce a montage that forms an association and creates
meaning. When I am happy, I feel expansive, wide open, and
big; but when I am scared, I feel small, closed in, and shaky.
Learning these codes of visual and gestural style is both a
biological and a social achievement. It's biological because our
bodies respond to situations in physical ways. For instance,

when we have to give a performance, many of us experience
stage fright. We literally shake with fear. This is because our
muscles want to contract—to regress into a fetal position that
protects our body from perceived outside threats. When we
force them not to do this, the muscles contract involuntarily
with the effort, and we shake as a result. When children are
extremely happy, they are likely to express it physically by
jumping up and down, which is another way to release nervous
energy.
Learning these visual and gestural codes is also a social and
cultural achievement because we mirror postures that we see as
expressing meaning. Two-year-olds mug for the camera in
specific ways because they have learned the codes of picture-
taking from watching others and looking at pictures. Children
pretending to be monsters do so in very stylized and remarkably
similar ways, considering that monsters are imaginary and thus
could take on any number of postures. So gestural style is a
combination of innate and learned behaviors, and these
behaviors assist literacy development in two ways: (a) by being
an expression of meaning all by themselves, and (b) by enabling
children to infer meaning from the suggestion of gestures in
print and visual representations.
Gesture's Role in Establishing Rituals
Another crucial aspect of gestural literacy is its role in creating
a sense of ritual. So much of human activity takes place in a
ritual format—domestic habits of dining together and preparing
for bed, waiting in line, communal gathering and listening,
playing on teams, going to church—that much of parenting and
schooling involves teaching children to participate in and adjust
to the patterns of ritual behavior. In ritual, we must attune our
bodies to others participating in the ritual activity. This creates
a sense of community and helps soothe anxiety, because our
own emotional states are regulated, mirrored, and affirmed by

the presence of others sharing those emotional states.
Parents, caregivers, and educators facilitate participation in
rituals by teaching young children songs, chants, and action
rhymes; by establishing a time and place for reading; and by
adopting a reading voice (which is noticeably different from a
getting-ready voice or a playing voice or a I've-just-about-had-it
voice). These special uses of gesture and language require that
children adjust their movements, rhythms, and volume so that
they are in step with others, or in the case of personal rituals, in
step with a preestablished pattern. Researchers believe that this
attunement is one of the reasons why we engage in ritual in the
first place, because it relieves stress by regulating our bodies
and hearkening back to the sense of communicative musicality
and connectedness we felt with our early caregivers
(Dissanayake, 2009; Eckerdal&Merker, 2009).
One of the most important aspects of the ritual of reading
together is the development of joint attention, as we discussed
in Chapter 1. Joint attention is facilitated by pointing, which,
surprisingly enough, is a gesture most babies can do very early,
although parents don't likely recognize it until they are looking
for it. But pointing is essential for the development of language
as well as other aspects of literacy development, such as
learning that things can be represented in different ways. For
instance, pointing to a picture of a baby's nose while saying
"nose" and touching the baby's nose, encodes three registers—
the image, the sound, and the touch—for the concept of nose.
Soon enough, the baby will come to realize that the sound
"nose" refers to a picture of noses and the baby's own nose, and
this will set the stage for understanding that the letters n-o-s-e
are yet another way of referring to the same concept.
Goals, Methods, and Materials for Promoting Gestural Literacy
Because children are natural mimics, gestural literacy can be
modeled, pointed out, and discussed, rather than taught through

direct instruction. Most well-illustrated storybooks that feature
characters offer an opportunity to discuss gestures and what
they look like. The most explicit instruction for the children's
own gestural literacy will likely come through negative
feedback, where children are told not to behave in a certain way
in a certain place or time. In most settings, though, children will
take on the behaviors of those around them. For instance, if
children sit with their parents in church, they will eventually
learn to sit and stand at the appropriate times, sing when others
sing, and remain quiet when others are quiet. A similar pattern
of routines develops in classrooms as well.
It is important, though, that gestural literacy be intentionally
used to enhance communication and ritual behavior. This is
where dramatic play comes in. Acting out stories is not only
great fun but it helps develop cooperative behaviors and
planning skills; and it encourages literacy skills such as
fluency, character understanding, and story arcs.
Teaching Ideas: Gestural Literacy
Reading Aloud
Overemphasize your own gestures when reading or telling a
story—be a ham!
When reading, point to objects and encourage children to point
so that they can develop the skill of shared attention.
Talk about pictures of characters in books. Ask how the
character is feeling and how the children know how he is
feeling from the picture.
Have children imitate the gesture of a character in a book, and
ask how they feel while they are doing it. Remind them that this
is how the character must feel as well.
Games, Action Rhymes, and Finger Plays
Increase your repertoire of action rhymes and finger plays to
teach to children. The upcoming list "Recommended Books:
Professional Resources for Storytimes and Action Rhymes"

suggests a few sources.
Play Feelings Charades: Whisper a feeling to a child and have
that child act out that feeling while the other children guess
what the feeling is. Alternately, have them act out an action,
such as eating an apple or swimming. Later in the year, once
you have shared many books with them, have them act out a
character from a book you have read.
Play the Pass-It-On game: Arrange children in a circle. Have
them pass an imaginary object from one person to another,
imagining how it would feel—a hot potato, a baby, a porcupine,
a heavy object. When each child has had a turn passing the
object, call out, or have the children call out, a new object to
pass.
Play the Mirror game: Divide children up in pairs. One of each
pair is the mirror. The mirror has to imitate the actions and
expressions of the partner. After a few minutes, have children
switch roles.
Dance and Drama
Have free dance time every day. Use different types of music,
and make sure you join in the dancing. Don't worry about
looking silly.
Invite community dancers in to demonstrate and teach their
skills. Alternately, call a dance school and ask if you can visit
the studio. Dance schools will often offer a free class for a day
care since they are usually not busy during the day.
Stage a play. This may seem ambitious, but it's really quite
doable for preschoolers. Have the children choose a story, and
then decide what characters, costumes, and props they will
need. Ask for volunteers for parts. Since they are not yet
readers, you may choose to narrate, or the children could
provide their own dialogue. Practice, practice, practice, and
encourage them to reflect on and critique their performance,
thinking about how they could make it better. Then invite
parents in for the performance!
Photo Book of Facial Expressions
Have children make a list of emotions: surprise, anger,

happiness, sadness, confusion, etc. Then have them experiment
with making faces to show these emotions. Take digital photos
of their faces making the expressions, and put them in a book.
6.3 Tactile Literacy in the Prereading Stage: Expanding the
Sensual Field
Tactile literacy encompasses the senses of touch, taste, and
smell, all of which have both biological and cultural
components. As with gestural literacy, babies and young
children need experiences in each of these areas in order to
produce mental representations that enable them to establish
their perception of their own bodies and a full understanding of
the world that surrounds them. Rich sensory experience creates
mental models that children can then re-imagine through words
alone, a process essential to being a strong reader.
The sense of touch is not only crucial to young children's well-
being, it's also one of their most well-developed senses at birth
(Eliot, 1999). Touch refers to four distinct sensations: (a) the
feeling that something is in contact with your skin, (b)
temperature, (c) pain, and (d) proprioception, which is the
ability to feel your body in space, both in terms of position and
movement. Interestingly, for babies, touch is closely related to
vision; in the first few months of life, vision alone isn't well-
developed enough for babies to fully understand three-
dimensional objects or images of them, so they touch them in
order to see them. Additionally, it's important to know that
infants' touch sensitivity is sharper in their mouths than in their
hands. This is why everything they can access, including books,
goes straight to babies' mouths, and why special books, such as
board books, cloth books, and books made of waterproof vinyl
are created to accommodate this sort of soggy exploration.
By 9 months of age, most children have successfully mastered
the pincer grasp, which will enable them to turn pages
successfully. However, their control of their large and small
muscle groups is not that precise, so board books are best for

infants' independent exploration. As noted previously, they will
point to things that are interesting to them, and the reward of
various textures in touch-and-feel books, such as Kunhardt's Pat
the Bunny (1940) will encourage them to linger and explore.
This exploration is extremely important to brain development.
Studies conducted with rats show that when rats are given new
toys to explore through touch, their cerebral cortexes thicken,
with the result that these rats reared in enriched environments
were demonstrably cleverer than rats reared in ordinary
environments (Diamond, 1990). As the rats become accustomed
to their toys, they grow disinterested and their cortexes begin to
shrink. The lesson for developing tactile literacy to be drawn
from this experiment is that children need novel sensory
experiences to encourage brain development. Going to the
library once a week to get a new selection of board books, and
introducing books that have interesting features for children to
explore, such as textures to touch, pull-tabs, and lift-the-flap
features will help stimulate not only an interest in books but
also encourage growth in the cerebral cortex.
Book apps for tablets and other devices also offer opportunities
for tactile stimulation since the kinds of touch children use
create different effects. Pop Out! The Tale of Peter Rabbit, an
app by Loud Crow Interactive, Inc., for instance, requires a
child to swipe a finger along a simulated tab at the bottom of
the screen to move the bunny in the picture or touch various
pictures on the screen to create different effects. Other apps for
very young children activate features by having the child shake
or tilt the device. In an ironic reversal, the children's book Press
Here (2011) by Hervé Tullet imitates an app by directing
children to press on dots on the page, which then change with
the page turn, simulating the interactivity of an electronic
device. Children enjoy this book enormously until they learn the
secret—that the dots will change whether they follow the
directions or not. This realization represents a growth in
intelligence—and indicates that it's time to move on to more

stimulating fare.
Taste and smell are represented in books rather than directly
stimulated by them, although children who spend a lot of time
in bookstores and libraries do develop a strong associative
response to the smell of books. Although infants react to smells
by turning away from unpleasant ones and turning toward
familiar or pleasant ones, this sense of discrimination is not
fully developed until they are 3 years old and is closely linked
to familiarity and culture. Thus, what one child learns to
experience as a good smell may be "yucky" to another child.
Strong smells in a book, whether good or bad, are often
indicated visually through the use of a tornado-shaped swirl
emanating from the source of the smell. This helps children
understand the way smells, which are invisible, start from a
particular source and travel through the air.
Books for young children often feature food, because food is
central to human experience. Through nonfiction, children can
learn about what foods different animals eat, cultural
differences in foodways, and the kinds of foods that are
associated with celebrations, such as cake and ice cream.
Thematically, food is often associated with either love or
power, as when Stellaluna must learn to eat bugs rather than the
luscious fruit her mother used to give her, or when Max is sent
to his room without supper and then returns after his wild
rumpus to find that his mother has left warm food for him.
Picky eaters like Russell Hoban's Frances and Lauren Child's
Lola, as well as Sam-I-Am's companion in Dr. Seuss's Green
Eggs and Ham (1960), must all learn to try new foods.
Goals, Methods, and Materials for Promoting Tactile Literacy
As with all of the literacies in the prereading stage, the
important thing is to enrich the preschoolers' range of sensory
experiences so that they will be able to use their mental models

to imagine the worlds that words create. Your goal in
developing tactile literacies at this stage is to create strong
links between the stories you read to children and the senses
these stories depend on and evoke.
Teaching Ideas: Tactile Literacy
Classroom Activities
Regularly introduce new textured and movable books to
children. Infants to 2-year-olds will enjoy board books and
touch-and-feel books; 2–3-year-olds should be introduced to
books with simple mechanisms such as pull-tabs, wheels, and
lift-the-flap features. Older preschoolers will appreciate pop-up
books.
When a book includes food as part of the story, have samples
available for the children to taste (check with the parents for
allergies first, of course). For instance, share strawberries after
reading Don Wood's The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe
Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear (1984), or have available
various foods from Lois Ehlert's Eating the Alphabet: Fruits and
Vegetables From A to Z (1996). Encourage the children to
describe the tastes of the food, and introduce strong vocabulary
words from the books to help them develop their taste words.
Create a smell center. Dip Q-tips in essential oils (available at
cake decorating and health food stores) and place them in
labeled zip-top baggies. When a book mentions a smell, such as
cinnamon, peppermint, or vanilla, have the appropriate scented
Q-tip available for the children. Teach them the technique of
holding the Q-tip a hand-width away from their nose and
waving the smell toward their nose rather than smelling the Q-
tip directly.
Introduce nontraditional foods at snack time (again, check for
allergies). If they can be persuaded to try them, children often
enjoy frozen peas, kale chips, seaweed, banana chips, dried
fruits and vegetables, and so forth. Have them describe the
tastes using strong vocabulary words. Take pictures of their test

faces and put them in a book with appropriate labels.
Each day, register the temperature and use a visual aid to
indicate what sort of outerwear children should wear for that
temperature.
Field Trips
Take preschoolers to various restaurants for tours and tastings.
Explain to the owner that you want to introduce the children to
new tastes and smells, and ask for his or her help in creating
such experiences.
Visit an orchard or a market with lots of fruits and vegetables.
Explain to the owner beforehand that you want each child to
taste a fruit or vegetable that they have never had before. Take
pictures of the various vegetables; and create a book that
includes color words, taste words, touch words, and smell words
to describe each fruit or vegetable.
6.4 Spatial Literacy in the Prereading Stage: Understanding the
Environment
Of all the literacy types, spatial literacy may be the one most
compromised by the digital revolution. Children learning to
read 30 or 40 years ago brought with them a wealth of embodied
knowledge about their environment that today's children are less
likely to have. That is, with only three network TV channels, no
personal computers or gaming devices, and more personal
freedom and encouragement to play outside, children mapped
their environment into the fantasy spaces that have now been
replicated for them on the screen. Now, instead of walking the
neighborhood, finding and claiming secret spaces, and making
up elaborate role-playing games with the kids in the community,
children are more likely to have their avatars do their walking
on a screen while the only thing their bodies are doing is
moving their fingers. Their activities and games are more likely
to be scripted and organized by adults and confined to areas
designed for specific purposes and safety, leaving them less
opportunity to self-regulate and figure out how to negotiate
potentially dangerous landscapes for themselves. However, the

structures of our imaginations don't change as quickly as our
culture does, so the need for spatial literacy is still pertinent.
But how much does embodied knowledge matter to the
development of spatial literacy in a digital age? That's a good
question, and all of its answers are embedded in personal
ideologies and belief systems. For instance, a prevalent concern
today is the environment. Richard Louv, author of Last Child in
the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder
(2005), makes a strong argument, richly supported by lots of
research, that our children's education must include more open
access to unstructured natural environments not only for their
cognitive and emotional development but also for the
development of an attitude of healthy stewardship for nature.
For children who do not have easy access to natural
environments, the lush visual presentations of the natural world
in the BBC Life and Planet Earth series offer an opportunity to
explore places, at least visually. Their sense of wonder with
regard to the natural world may be activated virtually, rather
than through time spent in the woods.
Another argument for enabling children to learn to navigate the
physical world is that this kind of exploration teaches children
the affordances (the quality of an object that allows or requires
a person to perform an action, like twisting a knob or pulling on
a door) of a space as well as the affordances of their own
changing body. Once a child is mobile, the best thing parents
can do is child-proof the house as well as they can and let the
child explore. The mix of freedom and safety applies to the
outside environment as well: Knowing which spaces are safe
and which should be avoided, and how to get from one place to
another in their own neighborhood are important for children no
matter whether that neighborhood is rural, urban, or suburban.
Children are naturally attracted to environmental spaces that
have been designed specifically for them. Architects and

landscape designers pay attention to children's size, needs, and
preferences when they design playspaces, classrooms, and other
environments, and educators and parents should too. For
instance, putting safe things, such as plastic containers and pots
and pans, in low cupboards that babies and toddlers can open is
great for their sense of discovery and empowerment. These
become like real-life "lift-the-flap" books, and help instill a
sense of curiosity in children. The notion that looking deeper
into something pays off is what drives scientific discovery after
all, and this curiosity, which Freud called the "drive to know,"
can be encouraged or discouraged in childhood depending on
the way adults respond to children's desire to explore. On the
other hand, barriers should be used to cordon off spaces that
may be dangerous for children.
If we consider that the purpose of playgrounds is to help
children learn to negotiate a world that was not designed for
them by learning to perform in a world that is, we can analyze
what sorts of spatial knowledge we currently think children
benefit from. For instance, there are always climbing structures.
These structures require balance, bilateral coordination,
decision making based on a conception of distance and weight
distribution, and strength. Swings involve coordinated
movement and produce a pleasant feeling of rhythm and
weightlessness. Swaying bridges encourage balance while
walking on unsteady ground.
In terms of literacy skills, knowing with your body what these
things feel like enables the imaginative reproduction of those
feelings when they are described or depicted in books. It is
much more difficult to have a rich literary experience when you
are unable to relate to what it feels like to be in the same
physical state as the character. But the play space also
demonstrates that these activities needn't be exactly the same in
order to appreciate the expansion provided by the book. For
instance, the swaying feeling you remember from being on the
playground bridge will get you started toward understanding the

tension a character feels trying to get across a raging waterfall
on a rope bridge, while the carefully chosen words take you the
rest of the way in your imagination. So while spatial literacy
helps you negotiate your actual landscape, it can enrich your
imaginative one as well.
Another aspect of spatial literacy is the ability to conceptualize
objects in space. This is closely related to visual and gestural
literacy, and it can be supported through looking at
picturebooks that play with design. The reciprocal benefit is
that such looking trains the eye to see more accurately.
While interaction with digital media, especially the augmented
reality books referred to in Chapter 2, will likely facilitate this
development of spatial abilities, we are still left with more
questions than answers concerning the effect of an increasingly
digital environment on our spatial understanding. For instance,
can we understand descriptions of characters traversing difficult
landscapes if we ourselves have encountered only digital
approximations of those landscapes? How will children's
increased screen time affect their understanding of distance and
time when they are simultaneously in their chairs in front of
their computers and in a virtual world and can put the
experience on pause whenever they want? Does turning a box on
a screen with a mouse activate the same neural connections as
turning that same box in their hands, or only in their
imaginations? Research has yet to be done in these areas, so we
just don't know.
Goals, Methods, and Materials for Promoting Spatial Literacy
For now, then, the goals for developing spatial literacy depend
on a balance between embodied experience and virtual
experience, whether that comes through screens or pages.
Activities such as working with modeling clay and other three-
dimensional media should continue to be a part of the

curriculum. But more emphasis will likely need to be placed on
getting children outdoors and exploring their environment.
Drawing maps of walks and the insides of houses and other
buildings and plotting paths through museums and amusement
parks using their maps will bridge the physical with its
representation. Encouraging children to re-imagine the
structured spaces of their environments into the secret spaces of
their imaginations will also improve their spatial literacy (see
the first teaching idea under Classroom Activities in the
following section).
Teaching Ideas: Spatial Literacy
Field Trips
After sharing and talking about a book like Satoshi Kitamura's
Lily Takes a Walk (1998), D. B. Johnson's Henry Hikes to
Fitchburg (2000), or Kenneth Cole's No Bad News (2001), take
a walk around your neighborhood. Point out significant
landmarks, such as houses, stores, or trees. Emphasize the path,
pointing out the turns and the basic shape of your walk. When
you get back, make a map of the walk. Encourage the children
to visualize what they saw, and make the map as detailed as
possible.
Share a concept book like Joanne Schwartz's City Alphabet
(2011) or Stephen T. Johnson's Alphabet City (1999) or City by
Numbers (2003). Take a walk, and encourage children to find
environmental print like that used in Schwartz's book, or shapes
that resemble letters of the alphabet or numbers as in Johnson's
books.
Compose a collaborative "walk" poem. A walk poem doesn't
have a particular form; it is composed of observations,
emotions, and experiences from the walk. Have each child
contribute a line that shares their feelings or observations
during the walk.
Visit a grocery store and show children the different sections.
Visit children's museums, arboretums, and parks. Make sure you

set aside time to talk about the experience with the children
before and after your visit.
Classroom Activities
Turn the classroom or playroom into a castle-for-a-day (or a
spaceship, a pirate ship, a pyramid, a city block, or an island).
Have children list the features of the imaginary space and then
decide where they should be and why. Use David Macauley's
books for a visual reference. Once the setting has been
established, have a relevant book or two to read, and tailor
activities and snacks to the space.
Provide art supplies for making three-dimensional objects—
clay, pipe cleaners, buttons, beads, nuts and bolts, etc.
Provide constructions supplies—blocks, Legos and Duplos,
K'Nex, marble runs, Lincoln Logs, Wedgits, Magnatiles.
Encourage children to tell stories when they have finished their
creations.
6.5 Multimodal Literacy: Putting It All Together
As noted at the beginning of Chapter 5, it's artificial to separate
the various multiliteracies into distinct categories—they all
develop together, and they all work together. But knowing how
each area works and what to look for developmentally will help
you make the best decisions about activities, methods, and
materials to choose for the children with whom you work.
As children explore their world through multiliteracies, they
become aware that the world can be represented in multiple
ways. Piaget (1977) called this the symbolic function, and it
emerges when children are around 2 years old. At this age,
emotions, for instance, are expressed multimodally—through
words, songs, and other sounds, through visual markers such as
color, and through gestures and body posture. Children need
stories to help them figure out what is socially acceptable and
to give them possible ways to cope with the emotions that
threaten to overwhelm them.

The symbolic function evolves during the preschool years to
enable children to explore their world through fantasy play.
Here again, they use language, visual representations, their own
bodies, and their spaces to act out their wishes and fears. Those
children fortunate enough to have a rich experience with story
will have better vocabularies and more expansive image banks
from which to draw as they construct their own stories; more
input leads to greater and more fluent output. Their ability to
tell stories emerges around the third year with support from
adults, such as providing storytelling props like puppets,
costumes, and playhouses that offer opportunities for
embodying story. Often, though, such support means leaving
them alone, so they can talk to themselves without being
censored or interrupted.
Children between the ages of 1 and 4 are also slowly developing
a sense of who they are apart from their mothers. Their fears of
separation are addressed in multiple books about babies being
separated from their mothers, as we have discussed, and turning
out okay. They are learning how to express emotions and name
the things in their world. They are separating things into
categories so that they can manage a complex world, which is
where early concept books and more advanced nonfiction books,
such as those we discuss in Chapter 10, can be a great help.
Interestingly, they begin to place themselves in categories as
well. Recent research shows that children begin to notice the
visual aspects of racial difference as early as 6 months old
(Kelly et al, 2007). Starting at age 2, they have an emerging
sense of gender. Certainly by the time they enter preschool,
they understand the visual and verbal differences between
ethnicities and visible disabilities like Down syndrome or other
physical differences. It is extremely important, then, that early
childhood educators talk about differences among people in
ways children can understand.

Often, parents and educators make the mistake of thinking that
if children are reared in a multicultural neighborhood or attend
a multicultural, inclusive school, their response to skin color
and ability differences will take care of themselves as a matter
of course. But research shows that this is not the case: Children
are attentive to differences among people, and their attitudes
about them are formed between the ages of 4 and 7 (Katz, 2003;
Paley, 1979; Vittrup, 2007).
During this critical period, then, children need concrete, clear
conversation and materials, such as multicultural books, about
what these differences mean and don't mean (Bigler, 1999). For
instance, parents can highlight the beautiful dark brown skin of
a baby or simply comment on the fact that some babies have
brown eyes and brown skin, and some babies have blue eyes and
pink skin. Likewise, they can point out that mommies can be
plumbers or doctors or they can stay at home to take care of
their children, and so can daddies. Dentists and teachers can
have brown skin or white skin. Vague statements like "all
people are equal" don't work because they rely on an abstract
idea that children do not understand yet (Bronson & Merryman,
2009). Even worse, though, children can assume that silence
about differences in race, gender, or abilities means that these
differences are possibly shameful because mommies and daddies
won't talk about them.
6.6 Visual Media for Prereaders: Using Screen Time Wisely and
Effectively
In 1999 the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued the
following recommendation:
Pediatricians should urge parents to avoid television viewing
for children under the age of 2 years. Although certain
television programs may be promoted to this age group,
research on early brain development shows that babies and
toddlers have a critical need for direct interactions with parents

and other significant care givers (e.g., child care providers) for
healthy brain growth and the development of appropriate social,
emotional, and cognitive skills. Therefore, exposing such young
children to television programs should be discouraged.
However, electronic media, including television, is becoming
more and more ubiquitous in our lives, and most children are
exposed to media long before they are 2 years old. Despite the
concerns of the AAP, relatively little research has been
conducted to test the effects of media on very young children.
In 2003 the Kaiser Family Foundation interviewed 1,000 parents
of children aged 6 months to 6 years regarding children's access
to and use of electronic and print media in the home. (For the
full report, see here.) Their findings indicate that preschool
children are spending at least as much time watching television
per day as they do playing outside and that they are active in
selecting, requesting, and manipulating their own media
(turning on the TV and using the remote to change channels,
putting DVDs in the machine and playing them, and using the
computer). Clearly, a new form of literacy and competence is
emergent among today's preschoolers that it behooves educators
to pay attention to, especially since the tide is not about to turn
back to a premediated environment.
For educators, then, one of the benefits of watching children's
TV is that it can help us learn how to gain and hold our
children's attention. Media programmers have to compete for
the attention of children, so they have become experts at it.
Designers of children's programming pay a lot of attention to
creating visually stimulating sets that help organize children's
viewing, directing attention to important detail with contrast,
placement, and movement. They pay a good deal of attention to
space, creating separate zones that are associated with certain
activities.
As noted in Chapter 5, music plays a key role in children's lives
as well as their media. Having theme songs and using music to

announce transitions is a common tactic in children's
programming and can be usefully copied in structuring a
classroom day.
In addition to picking up tips and techniques from children's
media to aid our teaching this new media-literate generation, it
is also important for parents and educators to use television and
other media as a springboard for conversation and interaction.
The concerns of most media critics stem from the fact that
television is often viewed passively.
That is, the TV is on most of the time, but as background, not
for intentional viewing. This constant flow of noise punctuated
by the occasional distraction of something interesting happening
does not promote meaningful interaction and can in fact detract
from it, as our attention is always split. It is better for
preschoolers to watch only programs specifically designed for
them and to watch them in the company of an adult who treats
the program like any other story-sharing session, by practicing
joint attention, asking and answering questions, interacting with
the children at their direction, and encouraging active viewing
practices such as singing or dancing along with the characters
on the screen.
Coats, K. (2013). Children’s literature & the developing
reader [Electronic version]. Retrieved from
5.1 Audio and Linguistic Literacies: Setting the Stage
The word “infant” comes from the Latin adjective infans, which
literally means “not able to speak.” As we noted in Chapter 1,
children’s social, emotional, and cognitive development begins
through attunement with a caregiver. This attunement starts

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