I have always believed that books play an integral component to learning in the lives of young children. When you work in early childhood education a large part of your time is spent reading to the children. There is an innate love of literature that goes on at this age we try to foster and we instinctively know that spending quality time with them in this way helps develop their language and literacy skills.
Though much of early childhood curriculum revolves around reading, I was unaware of the long list of skills it builds until recently. I am working on my masters with the College of William & Mary in Education and as part of my program I completed classes on Language and Literacy and Diverse Literature for Children. These two classes were taught by the same professor and the interrelated information served to highlight the importance of reading and of choosing quality literature to share with children.
Although my reviews of children's literature may seem out of place with the age group of the blog, I will continue to review the books I come across in this fashion and share them. Many families have older siblings and all children have birthdays. Its not just important to know what is quality reading now but for the future. It is extremely important as the adults in the lives of these children to be well read in order to appropriately introduce them to literature, make suggestions, or guide their reading.
Children's literature can be humorous, deal with painful topics, and confirm to children that there are others who are experiencing the same problems in life out there. Children's literature can beautiful and heart-wrenching but in truth children's books don't just speak to children. We were all children once and these books speak to us as well if we open them.
I will continue to post reviews as blog post but I will begin to link the pages here according to genre and age group as a way of making them easier to locate. I hope that these words will inspire you to pick up a book, not just for your child but for yourself ...
Picture books:
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