Developing Language and Literacy With Young Children

Developing Language & Literacy with Young Children, Third Edition, gives parents, teachers, and other professionals who work and play with young children a confident understanding of communication and language development for children from birth to age eight. This resource examines the range of elements that are typical of communication and language activities: thinking, feeling, imagining, talking, listening, drawing, writing, and reading.

The author emphasizes the importance of children′s relationships and communications with the people who care about them, spend time with them, and share in the excitement of their developing languages and their investigations of literacy.

This guidebook covers:

• Early communication and language
• Achievements of young bilinguals
• Stories, narratives, and language play and their significance in literacy development
• Emerging literacy in homes, early years settings and classrooms

Marian R Whitehead was formerly a Senior Lecturer in Education at Goldsmiths College, University of London, with responsibility for organizing and teaching M.A. degrees in Language and Literature and Early Childhood Education. She has published extensively on literacy, literature and bilingualism and is a co-editor of the journal Early Years. She now combines writing with language and early years consultancy work.

She is the co-editor of Early Years, An International Journal of Research and Development. She is a well known author, and her books include How to Develop Children′s Early Literacy, with Makin, L (Paul Chapman Publishing 2003), Developing Language and Literacy with Young Children, Second Edition (Paul Chapman Publishing, 2002) Supporting Language and Literacy in the Early Years (1999) Open University Press.