Nurturing literacy with infants and toddlers in group settings.

A caregiver settles herself into a rocking chair and positions an 8-month-old baby on her lap. She opens the cover of Ezra Jack Keats's Over in the Meadow and begins to read. The child, clutching a small stuffed bear, uses his other hand to bat and swipe the turtles, bees and animals pictured in the book as the adult reads the familiar refrain. Occasionally, he responds with coos, babbles and smiles. The caregiver takes turns listening and then acknowledging his responsiveness in a positive way. Although the child has not yet acquired language, he is participating in a communicative act, one in which he is learning the forms of social interaction and seeing the visual representation of his environment on the printed page.

Most readers would assume that this activity occurred within the context of a home setting. The comfortable rocking chair, intimate reading session and seemingly unhurried interaction with an infant are images rarely associated with center-based care, unless the center is a high quality one that is simply not affordable for most families.

Although many infants and toddlers spend 10 or more hours a day in group care settings, their primary caregiver rarely reads to them. And few benefit from the respectful, responsive and reciprocal interactions described above. This is disheartening, especially considering all the research showing how children's language and literacy development is interwoven and continuous beginning in infancy (Galda, Cullinan & Strickland, 1993; Snow & Ninio, 1986). It is also surprising when one considers that infant and toddler rooms are often in close proximity to preschool rooms, which commonly have established literacy environments. Teachers of the 3- and 4-year-old preschoolers have paid careful attention to physical arrangements, material selection and aesthetic quality in their literacy centers. In contrast, most infant and toddler rooms lack both the equipment and materials needed to promote early language and literacy development, and the adults tend to be heavily involved in routine caregiving activities.

A number of reasons exist for the absence of book-reading experiences for very young children in centers. Since center-based settings have only recently become acceptable for infants and toddlers, literacy programs have not had the same amount of time to take hold. And such programs' future growth is likely to be restricted by the difficulty in meeting the conditions needed to establish quality reading experiences for infants. Factors such as low staff-child ratios and small group sizes are paramount, but these elements, unfortunately, are very costly to maintain. Furthermore, the residual belief that infant and toddler care is "just babysitting" or "just comes naturally" results in the hiring of caregivers with less professional training and/or experience. A careful study of these inhibiting conditions and suggestions for practical solutions are needed to facilitate change in the majority of group care settings.

With the growing demand for infant and toddler care, interest in this age level is at an all-time high. Infant care is beginning to be recognized as a distinct form of child care (Szanton, 1992). There is a verifiable need to create programs for infants and toddlers that are uniquely different from those tailored to older children. Until recently, most child care research has focused on child development, facilities or administrative issues (Wilson, Douville-Watson & Watson, 1995). Researchers are now taking the findings from basic research and applying them to practical experiences and materials for infants and toddlers (Bredekamp, 1987). The curricula that emerges must be thoughtfully designed, implemented and evaluated.

This article will examine the factors that contribute to developmentally appropriate literacy events for very young children. Most of the research on infants and toddlers has occurred within the context of the home. Consequently, the next step becomes one of replicating effective practices and creating favorable conditions for center-based care. The author will offer suggestions to caregivers for creating successful literacy experiences for infants and toddlers in all types of group settings.

Envisioning the Future

How wonderful it would be if reading books with infants and toddlers became standard practice from the moment that a child is enrolled in a center! While adults and infants build trust and enjoy these brief learning partnerships, infants' language acquisition would be nurtured as they hear the words and watch the adult point to interesting pictures. Such partnerships would provide the opportunity to establish dynamic relationships based on compromise and adjustment.

This vision can become reality if caregivers support the processes that help young children learn to read. Most of the information available about these processes can be found in research on parental behavior during book-reading experiences. Although the research does not pinpoint a clear-cut path of progression, caregivers could model effective early book-sharing practices used by parents and adapt them to group settings. Caregivers must understand the progression that unfolds as infants expand their range of reading behaviors from listener to early participant and, finally, to initiator of the collaborative event.

The actual ages at which parents begin to read to their children vary. Many parents begin reading to their infants at birth. Allison and Watson (1994) support the idea of reading to infants as young as 0-3 months. They found that the earlier parents began reading to their child, the higher the child's emergent reading level is at the end of kindergarten. More commonly, however, parents wait to read to their children until they are 6 months old. At this age, children begin undergoing important physical changes that complement early literacy experiences. A child begins shifting away from looking at people's faces to looking at and manipulating objects. This change happens partly because children's hand-eye coordination has improved by this age, and they can now reach, grasp and manipulate the objects that interest them. From this point on, infants can establish a joint reference to an object or activity with another person; shortly thereafter infants are capable of intentional communication, when the content of the book, rather than its physical characteristics, begins to capture more of their attention.

Whenever reading to a child first begins, introductory trials are not likely to produce observable outcomes. Infants may not display any significant signs of interest until after several sessions with picture books. Fortunately, both infants and adults enjoy the physical closeness and soft rhythm of voices that characterize reading time. During these early reading sessions, infants often smile, reach, point and babble. With repeated exposure, babies will pat the book, show pleasure in familiar favorites, turn the pages and jabber at the pictures.

Many instructional exchanges occur throughout the process of reading to infants (Morrow, 1993; Schickedanz, 1986). Adults will likely expand on the text by making sounds for animals, trains, clocks, etc., and by giving much attention to pointing to and naming the pictured objects. Parents usually seize opportunities to connect the illustrations to their child's world: "Here's the baby's nose. Where's your nose?," or "The people are clapping their hands. Can you clap yours?" Thus, the parent offers a variety of invitations to look, listen, touch, move and communicate.

Adult behaviors are actively intertwined in the parent-child interactions. When the infant responds with cooing sounds, parents alternate listening and then responding. They frequently attempt to make books interactive by encouraging the child to participate. Over time, most parents readily establish a routine in which they direct a toddler's attention to the illustration, ask what is pictured and give the answer in response to the child's babbling. The participants take turns, each playing a particular role with a predictable sequence. Parents intuitively mediate the text for their child, and make early reading of picture books a social, collaborative process. Interactions become conversational and often are both playful and instructional (Snow & Ninio, 1986).

Within a few months, parent and child dyads will readily progress from a simplistic game format to a more sophisticated verbal dialogue. Children demonstrate signs of beginning attempts to read. Older infants and toddlers who have been introduced early to books take great pleasure in being read to, often requesting that one book be read repeatedly during the same session. In addition, many toddlers "pretend read" by copying the adult's gestures, such as turning pages and speaking with a different intonation. In a relatively short time, young children in home settings learn that storybooks bring them special pleasures. They delight in what books and interested adults have to offer and this interaction becomes one of their main sources of motivation for learning.

Guidelines for Caregivers

One of caregivers' goals should be to help infants and toddlers develop strong, positive feelings about books and reading. General narrative descriptions of parental practices clearly identify several elements that are key to reading with very young children. Because life at home and life in center-based care are quite different, however, the specific supporting contexts that emerge in each setting are bound to differ.

Classroom story time sessions should be short, one-on-one experiences. Ideally, each adult would be responsible primarily for the care and guidance of only three, or at most four, infants. Rather than following an arbitrary schedule, caregivers should take advantage of the children's natural, and different, sleeping and eating rhythms in order to infuse literacy experiences. Infants need to be perceived as part of a community of readers.

Toddlers also need this level of interaction, as they are unlikely to maintain interest levels long enough for an organized group to be meaningful. Generally, small, informal groups need to evolve, in which the caregiver sits on the floor with a few interested toddlers. The session should begin with a song or by looking at a book with those who are nearby. Toddlers should be touching the adult, rather than being grouped in a distant semicircle, as is commonly done in preschools. As the activity progresses and becomes part of the regular routine, children should be free to come and go according to their interest level. A child could even position himself in close proximity to the adult reader, but choose to engage with a different book, one freely chosen for the purpose of independent exploration. The caregiver should strive to give the toddlers pleasurable experiences with books, not lessons on sitting still and learning group-time skills. The challenge is not so much one of finding time to read to young children, although this is certainly a difficult factor, but rather one of creating trusting relationships and effective organization where literacy may become a regular and integral feature in infant and toddler rooms (Barclay, Benelli & Curtis, 1995).

This course of action must occur during a child's first year of life. Caregivers need to emphasize practices that build communicative patterns necessary to support early book reading experiences. Planned play sessions, during which adults can name objects and talk about how to interact with them, provide many such opportunities for language development. Other activities should include directing the infant's gaze to a picture or design that will be a focal point for communication or a catalyst for dialogue. Playful interactions are also desirable, such as singing rhythmic songs or chants while gently bouncing an infant on your knee. Melodies or rhythms in songs and chants provide emphasis and shape to words and phrases and encourage infants and toddlers to listen. Early exposure to songs, chants, play rhymes, etc., builds a bridge to the more subtle rhythm, lilt and enunciation styles associated with oral reading.

Much of adults' time is consumed by caregiving tasks, of course. Therefore, they need to be conscious of ways in which to embed literacy experiences into daily routines. All caregivers need to develop the ability to integrate songs and rhymes as infants are diapered, fed or put to bed. It is not necessary to commit multiple verses to memory. Instead, print up appropriate selections from rhymes and songs onto colorful posters and place them in areas of the room used for routine caregiving. Adults will then have easy visual access to the words and can concentrate on adapting their vocal play, remembering that some babies are charmed by gentle voices and others prefer lively animated recitations.

Making links between home and caregiving environments is necessary to further optimize early literacy development. Many parents are simply not aware of the importance of literacy experiences for infants. Caregivers can be instrumental in changing parents' behaviors by providing a window into classroom group reading activities. Newsletters are one way of promoting such insights. A simple statement, such as "We read The Little Engine That Could, and afterwards your child was invited to explore the toy train," informs parents of the title of an appropriate book and stresses the importance of literacy props. When possible, caregivers can send home the words to favorite songs and rhymes and accompanying actions so parents can actively reinforce the experiences at home. Many parents appreciate receiving a list of books and literacy related activities that caregivers intend to share with children during a particular month. Caregivers may also want to display photographs of children being read to and show videotapes of actual reading sessions. Parents can view the process and learn instructional techniques that they can apply during their own in-home reading sessions.

Physical Environment

Caring for infants and toddlers in a full-day group setting requires a rethinking of the physical environments developed for older preschool children. The caregiving responsibilities of this early age group are best addressed with a layout that separates sleep areas from play areas. Special attention must be given to the arrangement of furniture and equipment necessary for routine care, such as diaper-changing or feeding areas. To make the best use of the allotted time for literacy experiences, the environment needs to be furnished, equipped and organized to facilitate caregiving activities. Furthermore, infant and toddler rooms must be designed in a way that nurtures basic developmental domains: formation of trust, development of attachment, mobility, sensory learning and language (Gestwicki, 1995).

Programs that nourish early book-sharing events require a literacy-rich environment that includes space for individual and small group experiences. Infant rooms designed to promote literacy often have an area designated as a literacy center or corner. This layout may contain rocking chairs and couches that allow caregivers to sit and hold an infant while reading, and soft, cushioned floor areas that invite adults to interact with babies and toddlers as they explore books. A combination of comfortable chairs and floor areas for relaxation and one-on-one interaction will encourage multiple book events throughout the day.

Older toddlers also need cozy areas, where they can curl up momentarily with a book or snuggle serenely against pillows. The area can be further defined and enhanced with beanbag chairs, foam circles, low book shelves and colorful crates containing stuffed animals or puppets resembling storybook characters. Books must be accessible and attractively displayed, preferably with the covers of the books facing outward. The reading corner should be developed as an interesting place that continually captures a young child's attention.

Helping Caregivers Select Books

Choosing books for an infant and toddler room can be a pleasurable experience. Children in the sensorimotor period of their development will commonly act on objects physically. Thus, board books are often good choices for infants and toddlers up to age 2. Along with cloth and vinyl books, they withstand being handled and mouthed by infants. The typical toddler who is just learning to manage a book can grasp and turn the stiff, thick pages more easily than paper pages.

"Toy" books are popular choices, partly because they involve the child in some sort of direct manipulation. Some of the books allow children to feel different textures or squeeze parts to make sounds. Still others have "pop-up" three-dimensional figures or scenes that come to life as the page is turned, or various flaps for lifting and pulling. Toy books are generally best suited for one child at a time with adult assistance. Some are too delicate for young, uncoordinated hands and will not withstand rough or continued long-term use. More recent favorites include books with computer chips that emit sounds or play familiar nursery rhymes and songs, and books with batteries that activate lights to simulate twinkling stars or flickering fireflies.

As children of this age are particularly responsive to the sounds of language, this is the time to introduce nursery rhymes and books with patterned language, as well as song picture books and poetry and stories in verse. Rhythm, rhyme, repetition and familiar sequences will sustain young children's attention. Books for infants and toddlers usually have minimal text; the words often function more like labels or captions for the pictures. Plots in books for babies, when they exist, are often a single event within the child's daily experience, such as getting dressed or taking a bath. Although short texts and bold illustrations provide the mainstay, older babies and toddlers will benefit from books that include some narrative. Toddlers who have been read to since birth are ready for more advanced story lines with increased amounts of text. As with any new initiative, however, caregivers will need to develop a heightened awareness that individual children differ greatly in their responsiveness. All caregivers will need to familiarize and sensitize themselves to these individual differences.

Reading centers can be equipped with a wide variety of books. It is best to have a core of children's favorite books on hand at all times. Additional books can be added periodically. New books or less familiar books, however, may need several introductions before a child accepts them. Low shelves will encourage infants and toddlers to reach and look at all of the books at their leisure. Books with fragile paper pages or delicate features may need to be securely stored away. Whatever books are chosen, adults play a key role in making available a wide variety.

Conclusions

As more and more mothers of infants and toddlers enter the work force, the need for high quality child care centers will increase accordingly. Since many children from birth to age 2 are spending more daytime hours in group settings than with parents, caregivers must share the responsibility for introducing young children to the benefits and joys of book experiences. All child care providers should strive to replicate effective home practices and create favorable conditions for developmentally appropriate literacy events.

Fortunately, state licensing standards and accreditation criteria produced by the National Academy of Early Childhood Programs are calling for improved physical environments, smaller group sizes and lower teacher-child ratios. Regulations of this nature will no doubt help provide the conditions needed to develop effective literacy practices for infants and toddlers.

Additional training needs will emerge as center programs move to include improved techniques for sharing stories with infants and toddlers. Research must be conducted that focuses on how sensorimotor and pre-operational children differ in their ability to deal with visual and symbolic representation. Such insight is needed to validate the present trend toward continual expansion of infants' language and verbal experiences while increasing toddlers' association of printed material with language. Careful study may suggest very different teaching practices for the two different stages of development.

Literacy programs must be placed within the context of appropriate programs for children younger than 2; these programs characteristically invite play, active exploration and warm interaction with caregivers. They also provide a broad array of stimulating experiences within a reliable framework of routines and protection from stress. Professionals in child development, and curriculum and program planning, will need ongoing training. They will also need to refine their oral reading techniques.

Caregivers in all centers will need to know quality literature and become instrumental in helping parents become familiar with noteworthy children's books. This approach can bring children, parents and caregivers together in the creation of rich literacy environments in which all participants can become part of a reading community.

References

Allison, D. T., & Watson, J. A. (1994). The significance of adult storybook reading styles on the development of young children's emergent reading. Reading Research and Instruction, 34, 57-72.

Barclay, K., Benelli, C., & Curtis, A. (1995). Literacy begins at birth: What caregivers can learn from parents of children who read early. Young Children, 50, 24-28.

Bredekamp, S. (Ed.). (1987). Developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood programs serving children from birth through age 8. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Galda, L., Cullinan, B. E., & Strickland, D. S. (1993). Language, literacy and the child. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Gestwicki, C. (1995). Developmentally appropriate practice: Curriculum and development in early education. Albany, NY: Delmar.

Keats, E. J. (1971). Over in the meadow. New York: Scholastic.

Morrow, L. M. (1993). Literacy development in the early years: Helping children read and write (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Schickedanz, J. A. (1986). More than the ABCs: The early stages of reading and writing. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Snow, C. E., & Ninio, A. (1986). The contracts of literacy: What children learn from learning to read books. In W. H. Teale & E. Sulzby (Eds.), Emergent literacy: Writing and reading (pp. 116-138). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Szanton, E. S. (1992). Issues related to infant child care policy. In D. A. Stegelin (Ed.), Early childhood education: Policy issues for the 1990s (pp. 89-103). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Wilson, L. C., Douville-Watson, L., & Watson, M. A. (1995). Infants and toddlers: Curriculum and teaching (3rd ed.). Albany, NY: Delmar.

Cathleen S. Soundy is Associate Professor, College of Education, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.