The practice of reading aloud to children is ubiquitous in early childhood classrooms. Teachers read aloud to young children to entertain, to build early literacy skills, to develop domain specific content knowledge and vocabulary, to promote social and emotional development and well-being, and to draw children into community with each other and…

Multiple racial issues in America have been brought to the forefront by the recent deaths of African Americans, yet many teachers feel unprepared to engage with students around issues of race. Their discomfort is likely because traditional textbooks omitted the experiences of non-dominant, marginalized groups, thereby denying readers an…

Parents are encouraged to read to their children as early as possible. Multiple studies of parent-child shared book reading with children ages 3 years and older have shown positive outcomes on parent use of language-based strategies and child language development. However, few studies have included children under the age of 3; thus, little is…

Decades of research have identified features of classrooms and teachers' talk that are associated with children's language growth. Unfortunately, much of this work has not yet translated to widespread practice in early childhood classrooms. Given the important contributions that early language development makes to later academic achievement,…

Discusses 10 criteria to use when selecting traditional and contemporary literature for use with deaf children. Sharing literature is discussed; definitions of folklore are considered; and appendices list 55 traditional tales and 29 contemporary titles that are appropriate for use with deaf children. (68 references) (LRW)

This article reviews the literature on the role of first-hand experiences, language, reading aloud, and scribbling on the preliteracy development of normal and visually impaired children. It describes a specific program developed by the American Printing House for the Blind which includes a handbook and 27 tactile-visual read-aloud story books.…