Having taught elementary school for a decade, I’ve long been an advocate for literacy. Now, having a young children of my own, my passion has shifted to early literacy. My son’s love of books became evident when he first started army crawling. Every morning, he’d scoot across the living room floor to the bookcase where he’d begin pulling all the books off the shelves. Then he’d chew on the corners. My husband and I joked that he was a little bookworm, which sounds cute until your child eats enough board book corners to make himself sick. As a five-year-old, he demands to be read to throughout the day. His attention span is impressive and he adds words he’s learned from books to his vocabulary daily. I couldn’t be prouder. My daughter has just began her love affair with books. Right now she likes to flip through books on her own or snuggle up and do some listening while I read aloud. I’m looking forward to the day when I can read a book to both my kiddos at the same time without someone grabbing it out of my hand.

National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) has some great short articles on the topic of early literacy. They also have a number of articles on young children’s learning and development.

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