5 Playful practices that Support LANGUAGE AND LITERACY for INFANTS AND TODDLERS

5/25/2021

Playing with Infants and toddlers is the best way for us to support all their learning and development, including language. Through play, young children are learning how to communicate. They learn how the world works. They learn to put their thoughts into words. They begin to understand that words are symbols that stand for real objects or experiences. Our playful interactions with infants and toddlers set a strong foundation for them to understand language and to begin speaking themselves.

Playing with infants and toddlers also helps them develop skills related to reading and writing. In the early years, the development of these skills is called emergent literacy. Young children learn literacy skills when we talk with them, read to them and play with them. The more often the better, and it's never too soon to start reading to babies!
Young children also learn literacy from hearing language spoken around them and by being immersed in a print-rich and literacy-rich environment. This means they see lots of print around them and people using print often in their every day lives. Let them see you reading for information, writing shopping lists, and scheduling events on the calendar. Your children will want to learn these reading and writing skills, too.

Five Practices That Foster Language and Literacy Development for Infant and Toddlers

1. CONNECT!
Building strong, responsive relationships with children sets a strong foundation for learning, behavior and health - for their lifetimes. It is the single most important factor in building resilience, the ability to bounce back after setbacks.
The adult-child relationship is no less important in language and literacy development. When we express affection by smiling and snuggling, being playful, and really paying attention to our infants and toddlers, we are showing them that we love and care for them. Children learn best when they feel connected with us, and they are encouraged to communicate when they trust that we will be responsive to their efforts and meet their needs.

Playful Activity Ideas for Connecting:

Bounces - Bounce a child on your lap while chanting or singing a nursery rhyme

For lots more ideas for games to play with young children that build your relationships with them, click see my blog post Connecting Games to Play with Infants and Toddlers.

2. TALK AND SING!
Talk directly to infants and toddlers as often as you can. Try to have as many conversations as you can, so all your interactions aren't just giving directions or correcting children. Be sure to use the children's names during these conversations, too.
If you are talking about something around you, point to it so children can make the connection between the object and the words you are saying. Respond when children point to things, too. Label the object and talk about it, letting children take turns in the conversation with looks, gestures or sounds.
Tell young children stories and stretch conversations. You can expand on what toddlers say with the appropriate language, without correcting them. "I goed fast!" "Yes, you went very fast."
Talk to your children about many different events and ideas Describe what you are doing and thinking as you go about your day. Narrate the children's experiences, too. Give them encouragement by noticing their efforts. Becky Bailey, founder of Conscious Discipline®, has a simple script: "You ___ so [or when] ___. That was ___." For example, "You hugged your friend when she was sad. That was kind."
Tell lots of stories. Toddlers especially love hearing stories about themselves. You can make up stories about everyday experiences or retell the story in a favorite book. You could even say a nursery rhyme in the form of a story instead of chanting or singing it, as my friend recently did for a toddler she just met: "Do you know the story of the itsy-bitsy spider? The itsy-bitsy spider climbed up a water spout. Then it rained and the rain knocked the spider down. The sun came up, and the spout dried out in the sun. Then you know what the spider did? It climbed up the water spout again."

Playful Activity Ideas for Talking:

Spend most of your day talking with individual or small groups of children
Use diapering and other routine times to talk and sing with children one-on-one
Have conversations with children as if you were with friends
- Share your own experiences and feelings
- Ask toddlers what they think instead of quizzing them

Use books to have “serve and return” interactions with infants and toddlers
Tell stories often, with or without props

Infants and toddlers love singing, and it's so helpful for language and literacy development! Singing or listening to songs helps children learn new words and develop their listening and speaking skills. Singing slows down language so children can hear the different sounds in the words, which helps with learning to read. Singing with children helps build relationships, too. They love to hear your voice — whether you're a good singer or not!

Singing also gets children's attention and helps them remember what's in the song. Connect the words to movement for an even more memorable experience.

Playful Activity Ideas for Singing:

Sing simple songs to infants, including some with hand movements
Provide baby-safe instruments for children to play while listening to recorded music
Modify the words in well-known songs or ask older toddlers to fill in the blanks
Expose children to music of different eras, styles and from other cultures
Use songs to tell stories with puppets, pictures, or props
Read books to get you singing together, such as Over in the Meadow (A Barefoot Singalong) by Jill McDonald

3. DO MATH!
Math for infants and toddlers? Oh, yes! Before one year, infants are learning the concepts of “more” and “enough”. They learn to judge short distances and that there is an order of events in their day. These are early math concepts. Toddlers learn to count small numbers of objects, to match shapes, to compare objects and to follow simple patterns. When we play with infants and toddlers to build their language and literacy we can also help them learn math.

Playful Activity Ideas for Doing Math

Count with children often, pointing to each object as you say the number
Make a game of sorting and matching objects, like pairs of socks
Compare objects with children, and help them put them into groups.
Sing songs and do fingerplays that count, like "Johnny Works with One Hammer"
Pat infants to the steady beat in music

4. GET ACTIVE AND MOVE!
In the infant and toddler years, play is often a full-body experience! Children are learning through their senses and their muscles as they play. Join in, exploring movement with your children: Crawl, run, jump, dance, and move with your children. Of course, active play has many benefits for physical health and development and stimulates children's ability to think. To boost children's language and literacy development as well, you can encourage them to act out action words, stories, songs and more. Better yet, do it with them! Even if our adult bodies no longer move quite as freely as children's, when w participate in active play we can share in the joy and reap the benefit of movement while encouraging language development at the same time.

Playful Activity Ideas for Movement:
These three games from Torbert & Schneider (1993) are especially helpful for developing literacy skills. They emphasize direction in movement, which is important for learning to read.

"Follow Me" - Face the group with your arms held in a specific position. Invite the players to join the game: “Put your arms like my arms.” Then assume a new pose. (p. 89)
"Arrows" – As you point to an arrow, children move both their arms in the direction of the arrow. (p.48)
"Can You?" – Children act upon your directions: reach up high, stand up, sit down, turn around, etc. (p. 69)

Other Active Play Ideas:

Read books that invite play and movement, such as From Head to Toe by Eric Carle
Play active games with lots of direction words (over, under, through, etc)

5. READ, READ, READ!
Reading together with infants and toddlers is the single most effective way to help them become proficient readers later. Reading helps children develop their vocabularies as they are introduced to words that they may not hear in everyday conversation. It helps them to understand language and increases their general knowledge of the world.
Make reading a cozy and comfortable time for connecting with your children. Snuggle up! Talk about what you read with children. Involve them in the books, pointing to pictures and words and asking questions that get them to think. Let them decide when to turn the page and when story time is over. It's more important to talk about the book that to read all the words.

Playful Activity Ideas for Reading:

Use props or puppets to act out the story while reading
Use different voices for different characters in books
Gather real objects depicted in the story for children to explore while you read
Make reading as fun as you can, so children develop a lifelong joy of reading

Try a new way to build language and literacy skills for infants and toddlers as you play together. Connect, talk, sing, point, count, move, and read. Your children will benefit in many ways, and you will, too!

Resources

Bailey, B. A. (2000). I love you rituals. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University. (n.d.) Brain architecture.
https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/serve-return-interaction-shapes-brain-circuitry/
https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/5-steps-for-brain-building-serve-and-return/)
Greenberg, J. 2012. More, all gone, empty, full: Math talk every day in every way. Young Children 67 (3): 62-64.
Kent District Library https://kdl.org/young-children/ https://kdl.org/young-children/ready-to-read/success-basics/
Leiderman, R. C. & Sami, W. S. (2012), Let’s play and learn together: Fill your baby’s day with creative activities that are fun and enhance development. Beverly, MA: Four Winds Press.
Schickedanz, J. (2013). So much more than the ABCs: The early stages of reading and writing. Washington, DC: NAEYC.
Torbert, M. (2005). Using active group games to develop basic life skills. Young Children 60 (4), p. 73-75.
Torbert, M. & Schneider, L.B. (1993). Follow me too: A handbook of movement activities for three- to five-year-olds. Washington, DC: NAEYC.
Wiggles, Tickles & Rhymes. (n.d.) Pierce County Library. https://www.piercecountylibrary.org/files/library/wigglesticklesall.pdf
Zero to Three http://www.zerotothree.org/child-development/early-language-literacy/earlyliteracy2pagehandout.pdf
www.zerotothree.org/resources/1514-beyond-twinkle-twinkle-using-music-with-infants-and-toddlers

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