The Early Literacy Coalition of the Greater Chippewa Valley presents a new continuing education course for early childhood teachers, at no cost, titled Building Brains with Books: Early Literacy Coaching for Early Childhood Teachers.
Building Brains with Books exists as a targeted opportunity to support the vital practice of reading with very young children, promoting continued literacy engagement in the preschool years and beyond.
In 2024 the American Academy of Pediatrics released a Policy Statement on Literacy Promotion, opening as follows:
“Reading together often with infants and young children strengthens their relationships with parents and caregivers at a critical time in child development,
stimulating brain circuitry and early attachment… shared reading helps build the foundation for healthy social-emotional, cognitive, language, and literacy development, setting the stage for school readiness and providing enduring benefits across the life course,”
(American Academy of Pediatrics Literacy Promotion: An Essential Component of Primary Care
Pediatric Practice: Policy Statement. Pediatrics, Vol 154, number 6, December2024)
The Early Literacy Coalition will provide eight hours of in-person, one-on-one, volunteer early literacy coaching for teachers of Infants, Toddlers and Two-Year-Olds in group and family childcare programs.
Coaches will model and help teachers practice skills that develop children’s literacy engagement, leading to increased teacher confidence and frequency of reading.
Reading with young children positively influences cognitive and social-emotional growth in a crucial time of development.
In Building Brains with Books, teachers will
Teach children to engage with books in developmentally appropriate ways.
Identify age-appropriate books.
Utilize Dialogic Reading skills.
Construct lesson plans from a children’s book.
Use books to develop children’s social-emotional literacy.
Pre- and Post- Self-Assessments will demonstrate how teachers have grown. Participants self-reflect with the coach after each session. Coaches will return to observe again four weeks after course completion.
The Early Literacy Coalition will provide a collection of twenty-five books for coaches to use with teachers and the children in their classrooms. Each collection will be given to the classroom when coaching is complete.
Coaches will share additional resources from Coalition members and funding partners for the centers to share with enrolled families, as a means of further promoting early literacy practices in the community.