From some of the foremost early literacy development experts in the field comes this practical resource that is a must-have for all educators of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. Using eight key practices?Knowing, Showing, Designing, Including, Engaging, Explaining, Observing, and Responding?as the framework, the authors discuss how educators can support five important areas of young children's early literacy development:

• Language and knowledge

• Print concepts

Tanya S. Wright: Dr. Wright's research and teaching focus on curriculum and instruction in language and literacy during the early childhood and elementary years. Wright is co-author of several books for teachers and parents including A Teacher's Guide to Vocabulary Development Across the Day: Grades K-3 released in 2020. Her work has been published in journals such as American Educator, The Elementary School Journal, The Reading Teacher, Reading and Writing, Reading Research Quarterly, the Journal of Literacy Research and the Journal of Teacher Education. Wright's research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, the Institute of Education Sciences, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, and the CREATE for STEM foundation at MSU. Sonia Q. Cabell: Dr. Cabell's research focuses on the prevention of reading difficulties among young children for who are at-risk, particularly those living in poverty. Dr. Cabell's work spans pre-kindergarten through second grade and consists of how to strengthen children's language and literacy skills that serve as precursors to both successful reading comprehension and word recognition. She is the co-author of the book Emergent Literacy: Lessons for Success. Nell K. Duke: Dr. Duke's work focuses on early literacy development, particularly among children living in poverty. She has served as Co-Principal Investigator of projects funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the George Lucas Educational Foundation, among other organizations. Duke has been named one of the most influential education scholars in the U.S. in EdWeek. Duke is author and co-author of numerous journal articles and book chapters. Her most recent books are Inside Information: Developing Powerful Readers and Writers of Informational Text through Project-based Instruction and Beyond Bedtime Stories: A Parent's Guide to Promoting Reading, Writing, and Other Literacy Skills From Birth to 5, Second Edition. Marianna Souto-Maning: Dr. Souto-Manning is President of the Erikson Institute. She holds academic appointments abroad at the University of Iceland and King's College London. Prior to her career in higher education, Souto-Manning was a teacher in public preschools in Brazil and the United States. Souto-Manning has published 10 books, co-authored more than 75 peer-reviewed articles and received a number of distinguished research awards.

Literacy learning begins at birth and continues throughout our lives. From infants' curiosity for touching books to preschool children's growing understanding that spoken words are represented by text on a page, young children are little literacy learners! Young children's early language and literacy knowledge and skills build a critical foundation for their later success in reading and writing (National Early Literacy Panel, 2008). But children's literacy development from birth to 5 does not look like conventional reading and writing. Early childhood educators need different practices to support early literacy than educators who serve older children. The goal of this book is to help educators support young children's literacy learning in ways that make sense for their age and stage of development through learning opportunities for young children that build the foundation for reading and writing. It focuses specifically on the ways that early childhood educators can help to foster young children's literacy development. The authors explain the latest research on supporting early literacy for infants, toddlers, and preschool children and how early childhood educators can implement these practices with young children. The authors discuss five important areas for young children's language and literacy development and highlight ten core practices of early childhood educators that support these five areas. The practices represent important ways that early childhood educators can ensure that they are supporting our little literacy learners. Five Important Areas of Language and Literacy Development 1. Language and conceptual knowledge 2. Print concepts 3. Phonological awareness 4. Writing development 5. Listening comprehension and viewing comprehension Ten Core Practices for Early Childhood Educators 1. Knowing. The authors build professional knowledge, such as why the letter W is so tough for young children or how children's writing develop over time. 2. Designing. Offers examples of how early childhood educators can design learning opportunities to foster children's literacy development. 3. Inviting & engaging. Suggested strategies for inviting and engaging children, such as materials to include in the classroom environment and techniques for maintaining children's attention during read aloud. 4. Including. Discusses ways we can include children, whether by selecting texts for read alouds that reflect children's cultural backgrounds or building on children's interests when designing literacy-enriched dramatic play centers. 5. Explaining. Provides guidance about when and how to explain ideas to children, offering sample teacher language for readers to consider. 6. Showing. Illustrates how to model specific practices for children, from modeling for infants and toddlers how to handle a book to modeling for preschoolers how to compose text. 7. Playing. Discussions on how to use the power of play to support the aspect of literacy development featured in that chapter. 8. Transitioning. Discussions on how to use literacy activities to support transitions and how to use transition times to support literacy development. 9. Observing. Suggested foci for observation as well as informal assessment tools that can be used in that area. 10. Responding. Identifies specific ways to respond to children's interactions with print, such as the extension and elaboration of oral language and the scaffolded writing technique for supporting children in rendering what they want to say in print.

Introduction Introduction to the purposes and structure of the book including an introduction to the Ten Core Practices for Early Childhood Educators: knowing, designing, inviting and engaging, including, explaining, showing, playing, transitioning, observing, and responding. Chapter 1: Clever Comm…