Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/the-big-read!-story-sharing-as-a-community-strategy-toward-equity-diversity-and-inclusion/5027362/
The Vanderbilt Child and Family Center has long supported emergent literacy through The Acorn School early childhood care and education program on the university’s campus. Acorn offers a Whole Child play-based early learning environment with an emergent curriculum informed by social-constructivist thinking theories. Pandemic conditions and the varying ability of children to attend school in person created an opportunity for VCFC to consider how the three Acorn child care centers could collaborate to reinforce ideals and goals for equity, diversity, and inclusion through a shared early literacy project—thus was born The Acorn School BIG Read!
Emergent Literacy Through Read Alouds and Story Time
Decades of research affirms that reading aloud to young children promotes their language development and other emergent literacy skills. Emergent literacy is defined as the attitude, skills, and knowledge that young children develop about words, print, books, and stories before learning the standard academic skills of reading and writing. Literacy may begin when a baby is cuddled on a lap while a parent turns the pages of a board book. When adults share books in consistent story times and read-alouds, young children learn how to hold a book, turn pages, and engage with pictures as they are ...