Every year as the leaves fall to the ground in the chilly November air, I’m reminded of how much storybooks meant to me throughout my own childhood. They were an outlet that helped me begin to understand, cope with, and manage my emotions, both big and small. Now, as a clinical psychologist with over 35 years in the field of early childhood education and author of the award-winning ECSELent Adventures Book Series, I know just how important literacy is to children’s development.
Storybooks present a world of opportunities for children to learn important skills that will help them excel in learning and in life: emotional intelligence, problem-solving, conflict resolution, empathy, and coping and resiliency skills. Perhaps more important than the stories themselves are the ways in which the trusted adults in children’s worlds – parents, families, and caregivers – interact with them. Reading together strengthens family relationships, increases children’s positive feelings toward reading, improves school engagement, and helps children succeed academically.
While the month of November might make us all want to curl up with a good book, it is also National Family Literacy Month. Dedicate this month to going beyond your book by actively reading with children, letting their imaginations run wild as they become part of the story, relate to characters, safely explore complex emotions and social challenges, and better understand the world around them.
With so many stories to choose from, it can be a challenge knowing where to start. We’re providing you with strategies and book recommendations that will help you spend less time searching and more time focused on reading and togetherness to promote the healthy development, sense of self, emotional well-being, and mental health of your little ones.
It might feel difficult at times to actively engage in reading with infants. However, a lot happens developmentally in children’s earliest years. The brain’s architecture is shaped by early experiences and interactions with primary caregivers. Within the first 1,000 days of life, your baby’s brain is forming one million neural connections every second. Reading to babies helps build neural pathways, which are foundational to healthy brain development and to the development of emotional, cognitive, and social skills.
Reading books that explore different emotions using mirrors and other sensory elements is a great way to help your baby begin to recognize, identify, and express emotions while supporting their early language, communication, listening, and literacy skills.
Toddlerhood marks a discovery phase where children gain independence by exploring the world around them. Children of this age rely heavily on adult interactions as they learn from hands-on experiences, use more complex facial expressions or words to communicate their feelings and needs, and demonstrate basic problem-solving skills. Talk to your toddler and talk to them a lot to build their language and early literacy skills, help them develop important social skills like empathy, and help them understand and regulate their cozy and prickly feelings.
Reading with toddlers is a great way to extend your conversations and include meaningful social and emotional experiences that expand their emotional vocabulary, help them connect a feeling to a cause, develop empathy, and learn to manage their feelings.
BONUS TIP: Incorporate Our Emotions Cards while reading to infants and toddlers to help them identify emotions by matching the cards to the pictures in stories, practice making facial expressions in the mirror, and extend their learning to new related emotions.
Children of this age are curious and constantly questioning. How many times have you answered a question only for it to be followed once more with, “Why?” 3-year-olds, or “threenagers,” push boundaries, express and communicate a wider range of emotions, pick up on the emotions of others, and show concern for others. They are also sensitive to routine and become upset with changes, have difficulty with sharing and turn-taking, and easily enter power struggles as they test their independence.
Reading with preschool-aged children is an opportunity to introduce more complex emotions, focus on relatable social and emotional challenges, and help them learn strategies to regulate heightened emotions and solve problems with others. Choosing books that incorporate identifying emotions and connecting them to a cause into children’s daily routines is a great way to add structure to an otherwise chaotic world.
It’s their world and we’re just living in it, right? Children of this age often assert their independence by being bossy or defiant, giving the adults in their lives a run for their money with big outbursts of anger, frustration, or disappointment. This is a sign of children experiencing more complex emotions without knowing how to navigate them. At this age, children can recall and discuss specific events that made them feel a certain way. Be intentional about choosing books with characters, feelings, and circumstances that children can personally relate to and use them as opportunities to discuss emotions.
For example, if your child is struggling with anger and disappointment, I recommend reading The Ottersons’ Eruption, a story that explores how a disagreement between Hemmy and his Daddy at the grocery store leads to an angry eruption right in the aisle. Knowing how to have important conversations about emotions can be difficult for parents and caregivers, which is why I included reader tips and guided questions in the back of each book in the ECSELent Adventures series. Use these pages to help your child understand what the characters are feeling, how they calmed down and solved the problem, and how to incorporate these strategies into your daily lives.
Gone are the preschool years, and while children in elementary school might be able to articulate their emotions and those of others, consider different perspectives, independently regulate their emotions, and use compromise and negotiation skills to resolve social conflicts, they certainly don’t have it all figured out. Sudden life changes like welcoming a new sibling or going to a new school can feel confusing and life-altering to children at this age, and they often will seek validation, approval, acceptance, and belonging from both peers and adults. They experience strong emotions like frustration, fear, worry, shyness, loneliness, and shame as more complex social dynamics like exclusion and bullying take root.
Reading books that focus on these challenges gives you and your child examples of responsive interactions, helps them explore emotions and situations that they may not entirely understand, promotes a positive sense of self, and helps you find ways to cope with the changes, social dynamics, and related feelings together.
Regardless of how old your children are, reading together not only supports children’s literacy skills, but also promotes family connection, resilience, mental health, emotional well-being, and the development of the emotional, cognitive, and social skills that every child needs to learn and thrive. Join us in taking this National Family Literacy Month beyond just reading books by having important conversations about emotions!
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