The role of parent-child and teacher-child shared story telling and storybook reading is a key vehicle for supporting children's development of emergent literacy and early language skills. This highly usable and practical book brings the advantages of sharing books and stories to educational and clinical settings, effectively demonstrating how it may be used to support: print knowledge phonological awareness vocabulary inferential language abilities grammatical and narrative skills With contributions from notable scholars who actively conduct research in the areas of education, developmental psychology, speech language pathology, reading, and early literacy, this unique resource synthesizes and applies current theory and research on uses of sharing books and stories in educational and intervention contexts.

Shows parents how to help their child communicate and learn language during everyday activities.

How can we build a strong literacy foundation for children? This book appreciates that learning and language development start with the play episodes, oral language practices, wordplay activities, print encounters, reading events, and writing experiences that children engage in during the early years of life. Filled with rich language activities, The Cornerstones to Early Literacy shows teachers how to create active learning experiences that are essential to building early literacy. This comprehensive handbook is organized around the following topics: Play Experiences - Understanding the early stages of learning and all aspects of the play-literacy connection ; Oral Language - Supporting opportunities for child talk with suggested conversation starters and events that involve personal timelines and storytelling ; Language Awareness and Word Play - Creating a balanced approach to language learning using games and activities that involve literature, music, choral speaking, sound games, and more ; Print Encounters - Discovering, reproducing, and creating all forms of environmental print ; Reading Events - Integrating read-aloud and shared book experiences with proven strategies for supporting and observing young readers ; Writing Experiences - Identifying early writing characteristics and techniques for moving children along in their writing.

This concise, accessible book explores the connection between language acquisition and emergent literacy skills, and how this sets the stage for later literacy development. Chapters address formative early experiences such as speaking and listening, being read to, and talking about print concepts and the alphabet. Written for early childhood professionals, reading specialists, and speech–language pathologists, the book describes effective assessment and instructional approaches for fostering language learning and emergent literacy in typically developing children and those at risk for language delays. Vivid case examples illustrate specific ways to collaborate with parents to give all children a strong foundation for school readiness and success.

Featuring contributions from a unique mix of authors—classroom teachers, teacher educators, and children’s book authors—this volume explores the value of stories in promoting children’s language and literacy learning. Major sections cover the most fundamental and critical foundations for language and literacy growth—including first language learning, multilingual learning, and literacy development—and then focus on the forms and functions of story from infants and toddlers to the upper elementary grades. Here's the Story is a practical text that offers the conceptual and theoretical background for promoting new ways of bringing narrative to the forefront of children’s current language and literacy learning. Book Features: Original examples of exemplary instruction from multilingual and multicultural settings. Practical suggestions and ideas for caregiving and teaching. Interviews with celebrated children’s books authors Nina Crews and Elisa Kleven.

With the introduction of the new Early Years Foundation Stage in 2008, practitioners need to be able to meet the needs of all young children in the six areas of learning - one of which is communication, language and literacy. This book helps the reader develop their knowledge, skills and practice in encouraging and promoting communication, language and literacy for babies and young children. It includes: - activities, examples, case studies and ideas from actual practice - guidance on how to meet children′s diverse needs in an inclusive environment - advice on involving parents in their children′s learning - resources, useful websites and suggestions for further reading This book is a must-read for anyone working with children from birth to five.

This text aims to assist in the understanding of the way in which children's language and literacy develops . It outlines all the key issues in the area and explains the nature of language, the theories and sequences of language development and the development of reading, writing, listening and speaking skills. The book also includes chapters on bilingualism, communication problems and working with the child who is deaf.