Our Littlest Learners

According to neuroscientists, the human brain contains about 86 billion neurons. Most of these are produced during pregnancy, when the brain creates close to 250,000 brain cells every minute! Many others develop during the first year of life, when so much critical growth takes place. It goes without saying that a newborn baby arrives with a pretty impressive toolbox to begin his or her job of learning!

We are wired to care for and nurture our babies, but sometimes it requires more awareness and training to become sensitive to our children’s cues about stimulation and learning. They tend to explore, naturally and voraciously, almost from the time they’re born, seeking out the proper stimulation that will provide them with what they want and need to know. They may be restricted at first to visual exploration, but quickly move on to more tactile and auditory experiences to feed that natural desire to learn all they can about their environment.

When considering how to approach this amazing journey with your baby, just remember that simple things are best. There’s no real need for fancy toys or programs. You are your baby’s favorite plaything! Your voice is the one they long to hear because it reminds them of the familiar sounds they heard in the womb. Reading exposes them to more unusual words than they will encounter through conversation (one-sided as it may be for a while). Singing soothes them and helps to create a safe space in which to soak up the world. Repetition of words, phrases, melodies, and actions is critical to learning; it is essential for imprinting information and strengthening neural connections. Almost anything you do with your baby is fuel for growth. They know they’ve got a job to do, and you are their first, and best, teacher.

Guest post by Bridget W. 

Write On!

Reading, writing, talking, singing and playing are the five primary early literacy practices that the library promotes in our storytimes, programs, and conversations with parents and caregivers. Many parents wonder at first about the “writing” component of this list. Most children won’t write intelligibly until they are older, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t encourage the elemental foundation of writing from a very early age.

Children naturally want to imitate the things they see us doing, so making to-do lists, generating grocery lists, and composing lists of books to look for at the library are all common tasks that may spark an interest in writing for them. Thank-you notes from children, even when they’re not entirely legible, are always a joy to receive. Resorting to good, old-fashioned pencils and paper instead of a keyboard will show them that the act of writing still serves a purpose. While it’s true that keyboards will probably be their primary tool in the future, there are definite benefits to learning to write and form the letters they’re learning to recognize in print. The physical act of holding a pencil or crayon has the extra perk of stimulating certain pathways in the brain that add to their readiness to read in the future. Taking it a step further, cursive writing has been found to help the brain learn how to better integrate visual and tactile information, and develops even greater fine motor dexterity.

Making sure there are always writing utensils nearby is the first step in creating a “writing-friendly” home. Chalk boards, white boards, or large pads of newsprint, and plenty of crayons, pencils, and markers give them the opportunity to practice writing on a blank surface. I know it may sound scary to leave those things within reach, but at least having them readily available on request will make it easier for them to indulge a desire to “make their mark” on a blank sheet. There is even paint you can buy that simulates a chalk board, making an entire wall eligible and ready for decoration and letter-writing practice. Sidewalk chalk is a great choice for outdoor practice, and special notepads or cards for letters to grandparents, teachers, or cousins can make the exercise even more meaningful. So encourage the writers in your house, as young as they may be. You may find some fan mail waiting for you in the future!

Guest post by Bridget W. 

Talk, Talk, Talk!

There are five early literacy practices (talking, singing, reading, writing and playing) that help children develop the skills that are the foundation for reading. We incorporate these early literacy practices into our storytimes at the library. Parents and caregivers can also reinforce and help their children’s brain development through regular practice of these activities at home. This post will focus on talking with your child.

Here are some ways that you can talk with your child to help grow those neural connections:

· Talk about print that is all around you. Point out street signs, store signs, grocery lists, on cereal boxes, on books, or anywhere else in the environment. Help your child notice the print and talk about it together. This will make them more aware of print all around them and help them to see that print has meaning.

· Point out letters on signs or letter shapes in the environment or in books. Name the letters, point out their shapes, and make the letter sounds. The shapes, sounds, and names of letters are all things children need to be able to read.

· Describe to your child what you are doing as you go through your daily routine together. The more conversations you have with your child, the more words they will hear. The more words they hear, the larger vocabulary they’ll have when they go to school and the more words they’ll recognize when they see them in print.

· Talk about everyday things. Name objects that your child sees.

· Use “parentese” – slowed down speech – when talking with your child. It stretches out words and lets children hear the sounds that make up words. Playing simple rhyming games can also help with hearing and learning these sounds.

· Tell stories to your child about your family, favorite memories, and past experiences.

· Ask your child to retell stories that you read to them. This helps them learn the structure of a story. Have them make up stories to tell you.

· Ask questions about the stories you read together – what was their favorite part of the story, etc.

Children learn language by listening to their parents and others talk, and they understand words before they can carry on a conversation with you. Research has shown that there is a direct link between the number of words spoken in the home between birth and age three and a child’s academic performance in third grade. So talk, talk, talk to your child, about anything and everything!

Guest post by Allison C. 

Just Say No to Background Noise!

Have you ever had one of those moments when background noise suddenly disappears and your whole body automatically relaxes almost instantaneously? For me, sometimes it’s a noise that I haven’t even noticed is bothering me until it’s gone, and only then do I realize how distracting it actually was. It seems like, as adults, we have a stronger preference than kids do for good old-fashioned peace and quiet, especially when we’re trying to carry on a conversation or complete a task. New research shows, however, that noise is actually more distracting to a child’s brain than to an adult’s.

According to a recent article featured on abcnews.com: “The ability to understand and process speech against competing background noise doesn't mature until adolescence.” Because of that, it’s important for children, especially young ones who are in the early stages of learning language, to avoid situations in which they’re trying to listen in a noisy environment.

The article gave some tips for parents:

—Don't leave the TV, radio and other electronics on in the background. It's not clear whether soft music is distracting, but lyrics might be.

—Speak clearly and make eye contact.

—Especially in noise, make sure tots see your face. They can pick up on mouth movements.

—If the child doesn't understand, try again with simpler words.

—If a child's having school behavior problems, make sure being unable to hear in class isn't the problem.

Taking Turns

I’ve been reading a book recently called Thirty Million Words: Building a Child’s Brain by Dana Suskind, MD. It focuses on three key ways in which parents can interact with their children to help their child’s brain development: tune in, talk more, and take turns (the “Three Ts”). The book goes into great detail about each of the Three Ts and provides much insight on what’s happening inside the heads of our littlest learners. It also provides tons of nuggets of advice for parents. Here’s one:

“Emergent talkers often have to search for words. It may take so long that a parent’s instinct may be to respond for the child. This may expose the child to more language, but it may also end the conversation.”

So, when talking with a young child, it’s important to allow extra time for a response to keep the conversation going. Then, you can expand on what he said to help build his vocabulary. Additionally, questions that begin with “how” or “why” allow for a much longer response than “what” questions or those that can be answered with a simple “yes” or “no.” 

There is so much good information in this book that I have a feeling I’ll be sharing more soon. In the meantime, if you’re interested in learning more, check it out here!

Prescription to Read

Hats off to the American Academy of Pediatrics! This group’s new policy, in which pediatricians will tell parents to read aloud to their children starting at birth, has the potential to have a HUGE positive impact on children all over the United States! A recent article in the New York Times described the motivation behind the new plan: “With the increased recognition that an important part of brain development occurs within the first three years of a child’s life, and that reading to children enhances vocabulary and other important communication skills, the group, which represents 62,000 pediatricians across the country, is asking its members to become powerful advocates for reading aloud, every time a baby visits the doctor.”

According to the article, though the academy has issued recommendations on things such as breastfeeding and screen time, this is the first time it has addressed early literacy education. Personally, I couldn’t be happier! Check out the rest of the article here.

Babies on Track

I just finished watching Babies on Track, a 14-minute video produced by Best Beginnings, Alaska’s Early Childhood Investment, and it was full of interesting information that I wanted to share with all of you. The video focused on brain development in babies and young children and discussed ways that parents and caregivers can stimulate brain growth in their children.
 
According to the video, there are 100 billion neurons in our brains that form a network. The more interactions a baby/child has, the more connections are made in this network. From birth, these brain connections form at a speed of 700 per second, and most brain development happens in the first 3-5 years (primarily in the first 3 years) of your child’s life. Without stimulation, those connections don’t occur and brain development isn’t as full as it could be. Thus, it’s extremely important to do things to stimulate your little one’s brain, so that it forms those connections.

Do things as simple as telling your child what you’re doing (or why you’re doing it) when you’re performing everyday tasks like giving a bath, making dinner, or folding laundry. For example, during bathtime, you can say: “Okay, first we need to turn on the water. We need to check to make sure the temperature is just right. If it’s too cold, you’d feel chilly in the bath. If it’s too hot, you might get burned, and that would hurt.” Every word you use to a baby is a new one, so it doesn’t matter what you say, just that you’re saying something. They take in everything you’re saying to them, and those interactions have a big impact. The more you talk to your child, the better!

Another tip that the video shared was that when you ask a question, wait for a response, and listen to your child. Kids’ response times are longer than adults’, so we have a tendency to rush them or think that they’re not going to answer. Usually if you wait a little bit, your child will come up with a response. When she does answer you and says something like, “I’m playing with my teddy bear,” you can add to that by saying, “Yes, you’re playing with your brown teddy bear.” When you add words to what she says, it helps her to learn how to add words to something she's describing to you.

These are just a couple of the suggestions the video gave for interacting more with your child. For more information and tips, you can check out Best Beginnings Alaska’s website. It has lots of great information, as well as suggestions for early learning activities that you can do with your child. If nothing else, the main point is just that, especially at a very young age, constant interactions with your little ones are so important. Even if you’re just narrating what you’re doing, it really has a lasting effect on your child’s brain development.