Creating Language and
Literacy Experiences for
Infants and Toddlers
Peter L. Mangione
PITC Graduate Conference
Berkeley, CA
2005
VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT
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Number of Words
Types of Words (Variety or
Diversity)
Source: Pan, B. A., Rowe, M. L., Singer, D. S., & Snow, C. E.
(2005). Maternal correlates of growth in toddler
vocabulary production in low-income families. Child
Development, Vol. 76, No. 4, 763-782.
WHEN IS THE VARIETY OF
VOCABULARY MOST INFLUENTIAL?
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The effect of maternal types [varied
vocabulary] on child vocabulary production
appears particularly pronounced during the
early stages of language development,
around 24 months of age.
The effect of maternal pointing was also
particularly salient during this same period.
Source: Pan, B. A., Rowe, M. L., Singer, D. S., & Snow, C. E. (2005).
Maternal correlates of growth in toddler vocabulary production in
low-income families. Child Development, Vol. 76, No. 4, 763-782.
MATERNAL OR CAREGIVER TALKATIVENESS
AND CHILD’S VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT
“Maternal talkativeness did not
have an independent effect on
growth in vocabulary production.”
Source: Pan, B. A., Rowe, M. L., Singer, D. S., & Snow, C. E.
(2005). Maternal correlates of growth in toddler vocabulary
production in low-income families. Child Development, Vol.
76, No. 4, 763-782.
TALKATIVENESS AND VARIETY OF
WORD TYPES GO HAND IN HAND
Talkativeness
Variety of Word Types
EFFECTS OF STRESS AND DEPRESSION ON
MATERNAL OR CAREGIVER TALKATIVENESS
“Mothers experiencing more stress and
depression talk less to their children.”
Sources:
Breznitz, Z., & Sherman, T. (1987). Speech patterning of natural
discourse of well and depressed mothers and their young children.
Child Development, 76, 395-400.
Lovejoy, M. C., Graczyk, P. A., O’Hare, E., & Newman, G. (2000).
Maternal depression and parenting behavior. Clinical Psychology
Review, 20, 561-592.
TWO KINDS OF TALK WITH BABIES
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Instrumental Talk (Business Talk,
Contextualized Language, Here and
Now)
Expressive Talk (Extra Talk,
Decontextualized Language, Focus
includes Past and Future)
“BUSINESS TALK” AS
COMPARED TO “EXTRA TALK”
“. . .what happens is that when you only talk
a little bit, your business isn’t very fun. It’s
a lot of prohibitions, very few affirmations
telling you what you did was right. But in a
sense, extra talk is full of affirmations; it’s
all elaborations on what you just said.”
Todd Risley, co-author of Meaningful differences in
the everyday experiences of young American
children.
Source: www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/risley.htm
WITH “EXTRA TALK”, EXPANSION COMES
NATURALLY OR AUTOMATICALLY
“. . .that’s capitalizing on the teachable
moment to expand and elaborate your
child’s comment or words. That’s where the
best teaching happens. It always turns out
that’s an automatic part of extra talk. It
doesn’t have to be taught. It’s
automatically there if you’re talking about
extra things that are not business.”
Todd Risley, co-author of Meaningful differences in
the everyday experiences of young American
children.
Source: www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/risley.htm
IS PROVIDING RICH LANGUAGE
EXPERIENCES FOR BABIES INTENTIONAL?
“. . .I don’t think it’s intentional. We haven’t
seen any evidence of anybody intentionally
doing anything. . . .we never saw anybody
sitting down and teaching their child
anything.”
Todd Risley, co-author of Meaningful differences in
the everyday experiences of young American
children.
Source: www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/risley.htm
BEING TALKATIVE IS EMBEDDED IN
RESPONSIVE INTERACTION
“Talking was laid onto social interaction.”
Todd Risley, co-author of Meaningful differences in the everyday
experiences of young American children.
Source: www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/risley.htm
EVERYONE IS CAPABLE OF EMBEDDING
LANGUAGE IN RESPONSIVE INTERACTION
“Language is laid on that by everybody. In
other words, even the most taciturn parents
had moments when they were talkative.
Their talkativeness had all the features, in
terms of positivity and complexity, and so on,
that the more talkative people had.”
Todd Risley, co-author of Meaningful differences in the everyday
experiences of young American children.
Source: www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/risley.htm
BEING TALKATIVE IS EMBEDDED IN
RESPONSIVE INTERACTION
“What you can translate talkativeness into is
a social ability for interaction and sustaining
an interaction with the baby. And the baby,
of course, is motivated by sustaining the
interaction with the parent [caregiver].”
Todd Risley, co-author of Meaningful differences in
the everyday experiences of young American
children.
Source: www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/risley.htm
“SUSTAINING THE DANCE” LEADS TO
COMPLEX INTERACTIONS
“. . .When you’re sustaining the dance. . .the
dance steps become a little more complex.
But if all your dance is just one, two, start,
and that’s all your interactions and dancing
practice is, it’s always simple.”
Todd Risley, co-author of Meaningful differences in
the everyday experiences of young American
children.
Source: www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/risley.htm
ADDING TALKATIVENESS TO EMOTIONAL
RELATIONSHIPS AND INTERACTIONS
“. . . It’s the emotional relationships and
interactions. But what I keep doing is telling
people that what we need to do is to add the
component of talkativeness.”
Todd Risley, co-author of Meaningful differences in the everyday
experiences of young American children.
Source: www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/risley.htm
IMPORTANCE OF COHERENCE FOR
INFANTS AND TODDLERS
“. . .if you think about it in terms of central
nervous system stimulation, you’ve got to
engage kids where their lives are coherent,
spending more time paying attention to
things and doing coherent things. At the
same time you’re getting them to overlay
on top of that an additional dimension of
stimulation [language].”
Todd Risley, co-author of Meaningful differences in
the everyday experiences of young American
children.
FACTORS DURING PRESCHOOL YEARS
FOUND TO HAVE DIRECT EFFECTS ON
LATER LITERACY DEVELOPMENT

Oral Language Development

Vocabulary Development

Print Motivation (Interest in Print)

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Phonological Awareness or Phonological
Sensitivity
Letter Knowledge
PHONOLOGICAL SENSITIVITY
“These findings indicate that significant
growth in phonological sensitivity
occurs between 3 and 4 years of age.”
Source: Lonigan, C. J., Burgess, S. R., &
Anthony, J. L. (2000). Development of
emergent literacy and early reading skills in
preschool children: Evidence from a latentvariable longitudinal study. Developmental
Psychology, Vol. 36, No. 5, 596-613.
LETTER KNOWLEDGE

Letter names

Letter sounds
Source: Lonigan, C. J., Burgess, S. R., & Anthony, J. L. (2000).
Development of emergent literacy and early reading skills in
preschool children: Evidence from a latent-variable
longitudinal study. Developmental Psychology, Vol. 36, No.
5, 596-613.
EVIDENCE SUPPORTS A SEQUENCED APPROACH
TO FACILITATING EMERGENT LITERACY

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Oral language skills appear to provide the basis for the
development of phonological processing skills
Letter knowledge is critical for the development of both
decoding skills and phonological sensitivity
Consequently:


Literacy programs for young children (i.e., 2 to 4 years)
should focus mainly on improving oral language skills
Letter knowledge and phonological sensitivity should be
taught explicitly in the preschool and early grade school
period
Source: Lonigan, C. J. (March 2003). Children’s emergent literacy and
family literacy. Unpublished manuscript, Florida State University.
DIALOGIC READING
The type of help provided to the child is keyed
to:

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
The skills already demonstrated to the child
(i.e., scaffolded)
Building on previous readings of the book
Following the child’s interest both within a
book and in choice of books
Source: Lonigan, C. J. (March 2003). Children’s emergent literacy and
family literacy. Unpublished manuscript, Florida State University.
Language Development, Communication & Culture
Key Points to Consider

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Acquiring language is complex. It is not taught.
Infants play an active role in learning language.
Under typical circumstances, infants learn language.
Experience with communication and language is key.
Language development varies from individual to
individual and from social-cultural context to socialcultural context.
Infants learn language in the context of human
relationships. Experience with language typically
occurs during everyday routines/activities.
EARLY MESSAGES:
STRATEGIES TO ENHANCE LANGUAGE
DEVELOPMENT IN INFANTS AND TODDLERS
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Be responsive when children initiate communication
Engage in nonverbal communication
Use child-directed language
Use self talk and parallel talk
Help children expand language
Support bilingual development
Attend to individual development and needs
Engage infants with books and stories
Be playful with language
Create a communication-friendly environment