Hugh's Early Literacy Journey (Part II)

Hugh’s Literacy Journey and Interaction with 12 Recommended Texts in a Print Rich Home and Early Childhood Education Environment

This is the second blog in a two part series (Blog #1).

In my last installment, I introduced readers to my 8-year-old son, Hugh, a voracious reader who fully immerses himself in a state of absorbed reading.  His primary grades teachers have had the pleasure of keeping up with his demand for reading more books, and the school library is, without question, his happy place where he is transported to many worlds–from Chad Sell’s Cardboard Kingdom series where he can see himself represented among an adventurous multiracial cast of characters to the inspirational and social justice messages embedded in the works of Amanda Gorman. At home he reads an abundance of graphic novel series, including The Investigators, Dog Man, and Pokemon.  We read a variety of chapter books together, including Betty G. Birney’s Humphrey (the classroom hamster) series, Sharon Draper’s The Clubhouse Mysteries and Norton Juster’sThe Phantom Tollbooth.  

My previous blog documented Hugh’s early literacy journey from infancy and through his first year. This contribution will document his interactions with significant texts where he participated in shared and independent reading events at home and during his early childhood education experiences in the toddler room at the Early Childhood Education Center at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.  These experiences built on his home literacy environment and introduced me to new literature, in support of his early reading achievement.  Although his upbringing and development have emerged during a time of a precipitous increase of handheld devices and ebooks, his early childhood experiences and home literacy environment were intentional about facilitating family literacy practices that prioritize actual books, given the addictive nature of technology that poses challenges for young children to focus on actual book reading activities.  

Hugh’s reading journey is situated in children who learn  how to read on the laps of their parents (Buchwald, 2014),  in print rich home  and early childhood education environments where they are marinated in print (Edwards & Turner, 2009).  Deep engagement with print at home and early childhood experiences is well documented as an early predictor of reading achievement (Hayes & Berthelson, 2020; McGee & Richgels, 2012; Mol & Bus, 2011). 

Toddlers are immersed more than ever in handheld devices and ebooks, given the proliferation of these devices in family literacy home environments  (Archer, 2017; Harrison & McTavish, 2018).  However, a growing body of research is emerging that  suggests a need to restrict the usage of handheld devices during these formative years because young children benefit more from interactions with caregivers than from interactive screens (Archer, 2017; Reich, Yau, & Warschauer, 2016).  As caregivers rely on technology as a source of entertainment and educational resources for young children, Archer (2017) informed about potential benefits with active caregiver engagement. However, Archer (2017) cautioned that excessive exposure without caregiver participation negatively impacts fine motor development.  

Racial literacy, coined by Twine ( 2010) is an examination of the existence of racism and its intersection in school and society (Price-Dennis & Sealy-Ruiz, 2024). Racial literacy  practices cultivate opportunities for youth to talk about race and racism (Price-Dennis & Sealy-Ruiz, 2024).  Although intended for an older audience, racial literacy may be instilled and promote readiness in early childhood school and home environments. 

Culturally relevant texts promote deep engagement and instill good reader strategies that are informed by a reader’s  background and schema (Freeman & Freeman, 2004).  Characteristics of culturally relevant texts include characters that are similar to readers on the basis of gender, race, experiences, spoken language, interests, and similar family structure (Freeman & Freeman, 2004) .  Exposure to culturally relevant texts support  literacy development and are vital in print rich households and early childhood education programs.

In this blog, my aim is to inform about the benefits of books for pre-school aged children through a family literacy and early childhood education perspective, through the lens of sustaining and low cognitive demand strategies, and through interactions with caregivers and teachers.  Although technology is not the primary focus of this blog, its fast pace and capacity to draw intense interest among young children over literacy activities warrants mentioning. From infancy through the first 18 months, the American Academy of Children and Young Adult Psychiatry, recommends that  technology should not be introduced, unless face timing with family members.  Furthermore, The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends not introducing tablets until after age two, while PBS recommends waiting until pre-school.  Moreover, according to the American Academy of Children and Adolescent Psychiatry, children, ages 2-5 should have less than one hour of screen time per weekday and 3 hours of screen time on weekend days. E-books should be incorporated into print rich households, but with a careful balance with picture books.  By age three, Hugh’s early childhood teacher introduced us to GetEpic, an ebook platform that we began using for ebook reading at home, which we have been using ever since as a supplement to our collection of children’s literature. 

McGee & Richgels (2012) informed about a variety of books for  toddlers that provide interactive reading experiences and spoken language development. Such texts are characterized by their attention-getting features that support sustaining and low cognitive demand strategies, which  promote interest in reading, book handling concepts, and ultimately, a foundation for developing early literacy skills. High cognitive demand strategies present opportunities for comprehension processes and extended discussion for toddlers, across topics of interest. 

Each recommended text will be complemented with a picture of Hugh’s engagement with the text and a description of his interaction with the text–independently and with family members–and in this installment, in conjunction with early childhood education teachers.  These documented interactions represent a broader range of reading events during his early childhood educational experiences. Additional recommended texts reflect these broader experiences. 

Recommended Texts

A Creature’s Busy Day Eating by Mo Willems.  This  ABC book is characterized by picture to text correspondence, as a creature eats objects he is not supposed to eat around the house.  Each eaten  object takes the reader through words, A through Z,  including Huge Hotsauce Halibut  Hoagie and Ice Cream, pictured, upon finding the book at the school book fair at age 2 and a half. With the support of read alouds with caregivers and teachers, readers are able to read words that correspond with their respective picture cues.  

                                                                 

Things that Go by Richard Scarry.  This classic story was enjoyed by the children in Hugh’s class and piqued their interest because of their love of cars. With its enhanced text complexity, the story was facilitated at home and at school as a read aloud.  The attention getting text features below present interest with following the progression of a car race over a double page spread.  

 

 

My Big Wimmelbook–Cars and Things that Go by Stefan Lohr.  This text was a favorite among others in the Wimmelbook collection because of its emphasis on cars, other modes of transportation, and featured objects and characters that reappear in different places on each page.  Familiar objects and characters are introduced prior to reading, which provide a beginning space for pre-reading strategies and an expectation for locating the characters.  Toddlers engage in seeking and finding objects, and as they become older, they engage in character development and storytelling, as the familiar characters end up in a variety of humorous situations.  Engagement with attention getting and sustaining features promotes independence and exploration. Moreover, pre-reading strategies and character development promotes high cognitive demand development. In the image to the left, Hugh is revisiting familiar characters in the introduction.  To the right, he is featured locating them. 

 

                                    

The B Book by Dr. Seuss.  The image featured below includes picture to word correspondence and repetitive language that is characterized by color words and descriptors.  The predictable pattern supported an early transition to holistic word acquisition, in conjunction with picture cues.  Hugh’s sister, Norah, is engaging him with the text. 

                                   

Clifford and the Big Storm by Norman Ray Bridwell.  Hugh’s print rich toddler classroom included an abundance of Clifford series books among others, along with comfortable reading spaces that promoted reading as a source of enjoyment.  The image below, showcases a close reading and discussion between  Hugh and his  teacher, Dana Fennessee. The use of familiar series encompasses low cognitive demand strategies, including predictable language and picture to word correspondence.  Character and genre schema encompass high cognitive demand strategies. 

 

The early childhood education experience includes sending Scholastic Magazine home.  Each year at school, the children receive an issue dedicated to the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  The picture below showcases Hugh engaging in how he could be like Dr. King.  Hugh‘s engagement with the magazine articles prompted me to share Martin’s Big Words, a popular picture nonfiction book that documents King‘s nonviolent acts of protest in a narrative structure that is approachable for young learners.  

 

The key linkages between both texts presented high cognitive demand, vocabulary development, text-to-text  connections between two different types of nonfiction, in support of deeper comprehension processes. Our discussion surrounding these texts paved a beginning space for cultivating racial literacy in support of his racialized identity and ability to talk about race and racism in school and society from an early age. These experiences are on-going throughout his childhood and have instilled a keen sense of racial justice. 

 

The outlined reading events demonstrate a home and school partnership, in which school based texts influenced my selection of companion literature, and spaces for extended conversation, and exploration of text-to-text and text-to-self connections  in Hugh‘s home literacy environment. Through this process, home and school literacy events were influenced by Hugh’s interests.  Moreover, these experiences instilled Hugh‘s early racial literacy development.

Additional Recommendations

Additional recommendations that are not pictured above, but are highly recommended include:

• Good News, Bad News by Jeff Mack– This text includes predictable language–good news, bad news– and corresponding picture cues, as a mouse and a rabbit attempt to have a picnic and encounter a variety of unanticipated circumstances. The succession of events are humorous and present opportunities for high cognitive demand discussion 

 

• The Gerald and Piggie Series by Mo Willems–this popular series features fun scenarios between Gerald and Piggie, including exploring being read in a book, sharing ice cream, to planning a drive.  The speech bubbles include bold punctuation marks, which promote early exposure to punctuation concepts and adjusting tone and expression  during read alouds. The repetition of phrases featured in the speech bubbles presents opportunities for echo reading between caregivers and readers.       
• A Duck on a Bike by David Shannon–The adventures of a duck on a bike and his interactions with envious animals and their sounds along the way are ideal for an engaging read aloud experience. 

 

• The Hey Carter series by Thomishia Booker  features brown boys with a variety of skin tones, hair textures, interests,  bright eyes, and big smiles. The representation of positivity, adventure, and creativity through an asset lens presents opportunities for brown boys to see themselves represented in the context of everyday life. 

• PJ Masks by Daphne Pendergrass.  The PJ Masks book and animated series are a favorite  for the toddler audience.  While reading, young children are able to apply popular culture funds of knowledge acquired from watching the series to reading the action packed plot sequence in the companion books.  Both formats include repetitive phrases  with corresponding picture cues that are memorable for early readers and build character schema, as the main characters become their alter ego in order to save the day.  The repetition and predictable language makes it possible for toddlers to assume ownership and read the following pages that appear in each PJ masks Level 1 reader independently: 

Conclusion

The collection of recommended texts underscores a variety of attention sustaining features that promote low and high cognitive demand strategies for emergent readers.  The abundance of texts makes it possible and necessary for caregivers and  early childhood educators  to be intentional about providing on-going immersion with independent and shared reading experiences. Full immersion in a print rich home and early childhood environment, with limited exposure to handheld devices, is a predictor of early reading acquisition.

References

Archer, K. (2017). Infants, toddlers and mobile technology: Examining parental choices and the impact of early technology introduction on cognitive and motor development.

Buchwald, E. (2014). Children are made readers on the laps of their parents. A Lifetime of Fiction: The 500 Most Recommended Reads for Ages 2 to 102.

Dennis, D.P. &. Sealey-Ruiz, Y. (2024).  Advancing racial literacies in teacher education.  Teachers College Press.  

Edwards, P. A., & Turner, J. D. (2014). Family literacy and reading comprehension. In Handbook of research on reading comprehension (pp. 646-666). Routledge.

Farrant, B. M., & Zubrick, S. R. (2013). Parent–child book reading across early childhood and child vocabulary in the early school years: Findings from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. First Language, 33(3), 280-293. https://doi.org/10.1177/0142723713487617.

Freeman, Y. & Freeman, D. (2004).  Connecting students to culturally relevant texts.  Talking Points, 15(2), 7-11.

Harrison, E., & McTavish, M. (2018). ‘i’Babies: Infants’ and toddlers’ emergent language and literacy in a digital culture of iDevices. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 18(2), 163-188. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468798416653175

Hayes, N., & Berthelsen, D. C. (2020). Longitudinal profiles of shared book reading in early childhood and children’s academic achievement in Year 3 of school. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 31(1), 31–49. https://doi.org/10.1080/09243453.2019.1618347.

Mol, S. E., & Bus, A. G. (2011). To read or not to read: A meta-analysis of print exposure from infancy to early adulthood. Psychological Bulletin, 137(2), 267–296. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021890

Reich, S.M.  Yau, J.C.,  Warschauer, M. (2016). Tablet-based eBooks for young children: What does the research say? Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics 37(7):p 585-591. DOI: 10.1097/DBP.0000000000000335

Twine, W.F. (2010).  A white side of black Britain:  Interracial intimacy and racial literacy.  Duke University Press.