Lizzi Ogle – Tremont District Library 1 Early Literacy Tip Tuesday September 8th – Give Your Child Time Hi everyone! Welcome back to Early Literacy Tip Tuesdays. In this video series we are working our way through The Five Practices of Early Literacy and digging into each one to see how we can help our pre-readers become better learners throughout life. This week I want to wrap up our first Practice: Talking, with a discussion about how children think and ways to help them become better critical thinkers. Let’s learn a little bit about our brain first. One way the human brain operates is by way of “Synapses”. Synapses are communications between neurons, or communications between parts of our brains that tell us how to do something, like fine or gross motor activities or speech and problem solving. A synapse can be as simple as how to pick something up, or as complicated as how to solve a multiplication problem. As adults, we have about 500 Trillion synapses that we keep stored in our brains. When we are born, we have all the neurons we will need, but few connections between them are made. Between birth and the age of three, we begin making 700-1,000 new connections per second. Around age three, we have nearly twice as many active synapses as we will have as adults! Later in childhood the brain begins to weed through synapses and keeps only the ones that were used repeatedly in everyday life. This is why repetition is so important in Early Literacy skills! Talking about actions and singing the same songs over and over again are helping your baby learn the basics of speech and they will keep those skills for their entire life! A child’s brain develops almost 90% before they even reach Kindergarten, so the connections they make before then are important! So remember, children’s brains are working hard to learn about their environment and how to function as a human. It is important to remember this when we ask children questions or give them tasks. Lizzi Ogle – Tremont District Library 2 Giving your child time to respond to a question, even as simple as “How old are you?” is important for their developing thought process, comprehension skills, and even their confidence. When you ask a child a question, remember the 5 second rule: ask your question and then wait at least 5 seconds before asking another question or giving the child a prompt. Some experts say to wait 20 seconds! This time gives your child time to process the question, and sort through their thoughts to provide an answer. If you quickly ask them a follow-up question or prompt their answer, the time that they take to process the original question starts over, or is abruptly cut off. In the time that you are waiting for an answer, give the child your full attention and show them that you are interested and eagerly awaiting a response. Along with helping children learn good listening skills themselves, this helps them gain confidence in using their voice and knowledge. If you have a child who answers questions very quickly with wrong answers, you can encourage them to take a few seconds to think before they respond as well. Along with giving your child time to think when you ask a question, it’s also important to ask the right kinds of questions. Here are some simple tips when it comes to asking our children questions that can help them develop better critical thinking skills. 1. Ask open-ended questions. While it’s great for your child to answer questions that have a definitive answer, like their age or what color something is, it’s also good to ask questions that require them to create their own answer for. Questions like, “What are you playing with your toys?” or “Can you tell me more about your story?” help your child to create statements of their own and not just recite memorized information. 2. Ask your child “Why?”. Ask them silly questions that require a little bit more thought, like “Would you rather travel to the moon or the ocean?” Lizzi Ogle – Tremont District Library 3 And then ask them why. Encouraging children to continue thinking about a question helps to develop those necessary critical thinking skills. 3. Help your child think ahead, or develop hypotheses. Ask your child what they think will happen next in a story, or ask them what happens next when they are creating a story of their own. Thinking ahead helps children learn “If...Then…” scenarios and helps them to develop storytelling skills! It’s important to remember that children learn best when they are experiencing the world for themselves. Asking questions, and giving them adequate time to think and respond for themselves, helps to make these experiences memorable, and the skills learned from them stick. Early Literacy skills develop from everyday conversations and activities, try to add this practice to your daily life and watch your child’s thinking and talking skills soar. That concludes our videos on the first of the Five Practices: Talking. Come back next week to start learning about the next one: Singing and how song and rhyme help your child to learn. Thanks for watching! Articles for more information: https://www.makeandtakes.com/giving-kids-time-to- respond#:~:text=When%20asking%20a%20child%20a,child%20could%20answer %20right%20away.&text=This%20technique%20helps%20children%20process,%2 C%20and%20builds%20self%2Dconfidence. https://acorndreams.com/wait-a-few-more-seconds/ https://www.firstthingsfirst.org/early-childhood-matters/brain-development/ https://extension.umaine.edu/publications/4356e/ http://www.urbanchildinstitute.org/why-0-3/baby-and- brain#:~:text=In%20the%20first%20three%20years,it%20will%20have%20in%20a Lizzi Ogle – Tremont District Library 4 dulthood.&text=It%20doubles%20in%20size%20in,than%20at%20any%20other% 20time. https://www.brighthorizons.com/family-resources/developing-critical-thinking- skills-in-children
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