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The Preschool Podcast, brought to you by HiMama, is a platform for learning from leading professionals in early childhood education. If you work in a childcare, preschool or early years setting, The Preschool Podcast will provide you with inspiring and motivational stories, as well as practical advice for managing your organization, center or classroom. The goal of the The Preschool Podcast is to provide inspiration and knowledge to the future leaders of early childhood education by speaking with experienced and insightful leaders in the world of preschool and early learning today.

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Episode #41 - Impactful advocacy for child care| April 25, 2017

Early Language Learning Predicts Later Language Skills

from EARLY LANGUAGE LEARNING AND LITERACY: Neuroscience Implications for Education

Early language learning is a complex process. Our working hypothesis is the following: Infants computational skills, modulated by social interaction, open a window of increased plasticity at about 8 months of life. Between 8 and 10 months monolingual infants show an increase in native language phonetic perception, a decrease in nonnative phonetic perception, and remain open to phonetic learning from a new language that can be induced by social experience with a speaker of that language (though not via a standard TV experience). The complexity of learning in this early phase is not trivial, and that complexity might explain why our laboratory studies show wide individual differences in the early phonetic transition. An important question, especially for practice, was suggested by these data: Is an individual child’s success at this early transition toward language indicative of future language skills or literacy?

We began studies to determine whether the variability observed in measures of early phonetic learning predicted children’s language skills measured at later points in development. We recognized that it was possible that the variability we observed was simply “noise,” in other words, random variation in a child’s skill on the particular day that we measured that child in the laboratory. We were therefore pleased when our first studies demonstrated that infants’ discrimination of two simple vowels at 6 months of age was significantly correlated with their language skills at 13, 16, and 24 months of age (Tsao, Liu, and Kuhl, 2004). Later studies confirmed the connection between early speech perception and later language skills using both brain (Rivera-Gaxiola et al., 2005b; Kuhl et al., 2008) and behavioral (Kuhl et al., 2005a) measures on monolingual infants, and with bilingual infants using brain measures (Garcia-Sierra et al., in press). Other laboratories also produced data that indicated strong links between the speed of speech processing and later language function (Fernald, Perfors, and Marchman, 2006) and between various measures of statistical learning and later language measures (Newman, Ratner, Jusczyk, Jusczyk,and Dow, 2006).

Recent data from our laboratory indicate long-term associations between early measures of infants’ phonetic perception and future language and reading skills. The new work measures vowel perception at 7 and 11 months and shows that the trajectory of learning between those two ages predicts the children’s language abilities and pre-literacy skills at the age of 5 years—the association holds regardless of socio-economic status, as well as the level of children’s language skills at 18 and 24 months of age (Cardillo Lebedeva and Kuhl, 2009).

Infants tested at 7 and 11 months of age show three patterns of speech perception development: (1) infants who show excellent native discrimination at 7 months and maintain that ability at 11 months, the high-high group, (2) infants who show poor abilities at 7 months but excellent performance at 11 months, the low-high group, and (3) infants who show poor abilities to discriminate at both 7 and 11 months of age, the low-low group. We followed these children until the age of 5, assessing language skills at 18 months, 24 months, and 5 years of age. Strong relationships were observed between infants’ early speech perception performance and their later language skills at 18 and 24 months. At 5 years of age, significant relationships were shown between infants’ early speech perception performance and both their language skills and the phonological awareness skills associated with success in learning to read. In all cases, the earlier in development that infants showed excellent skills in detecting phonetic differences in native language sounds, the better their later performance in measures of language and pre-literacy skills (Cardillo Lebedeva and Kuhl, 2009).

These results are theoretically interesting and also highly relevant to early learning practice. These data show that the initial steps that infants take toward language learning are important to their development of language and literacy years later. Our data suggest as well that these early differences in performance are strongly related to experience. Our studies reveal that these early measures of speech discrimination, which predict future language and literacy, are strongly correlated to experience with “motherese” early in development (Liu, Kuhl, and Tsao, 2003). Motherese exaggerates the critical acoustic cues in speech (Kuhl et al., 1997; Werker et al., 2007), and infants’ social interest in speech is, we believe, important to the social learning process. Thus, talking to children early in life, reading to them early in life, and interacting socially with children around language and literacy activities creates the milieu in which plasticity during the critical period can be maximized for all children.

There is increasing evidence that children raised in families with lower socio-economic status (SES) show deficits in language measured either behaviorally or in brain studies (for extensive review, see Raizada and Kishiyama, 2010). In one of the first studies of 5-year-old children combining behavioral and brain measures, Raizada et al. (2008) examined the associations between standardized test scores of language, social cognition, intelligence, SES, and fMRI-measured brain activity as the 5-year-old children worked on a rhyming task. The results showed correlations between SES, language performance, and the degree of hemispheric specialization in Broca’s area, as measured by left-minus-right fMRI activation (Figure 6). The SES-Broca’s link remained highly significant after the effects of the language scores were removed, indicating the relationship cannot be attributed to both measures’ correlations with the language scores. The study shows a correlational link, which of course we cannot assume to be causal.

Figure 6

Relationship between left hemisphere specialization in Broca’s area (a) and SES in 5-year-old children (b) (From Raizada et al., 2008).

The authors concluded that fMRI is a more sensitive measure of the development of Broca’s area than any of the behavioral tests; each behavioral score is a compound function of perception, cognition, attention and motor control, whereas fMRI probes Broca’s more directly. Thus, neuroimaging studies, especially early in development, may be able to provide us with highly sensitive measures of competence.

We assumed that SES is not itself the variable driving these effects on the brain—SES is likely a proxy for the opportunity to learn. We learned in a follow-up study that SES could be removed from the equation if language input itself was measured. The complexity of language input is the more direct factor influencing development of brain areas that code language. When measures of the complexity of maternal language were assessed across the entire sample of children in the study, we observed a correlation with structural measures of the brain in Broca’s area. These measures indicated that greater grey matter in the left hemisphere language areas was related to the complexity of maternal language in conversations between the mothers and their 5-year-old children.

In summary, our results suggested that language input to the child—its complexity and diversity—was the factor affecting brain development in the language areas, not SES per se. The implication is that children’s brains literally depend on input for development. Though these results are correlational, we believe that the connection between experience with language and brain development is potentially causal and that further research will allow us to develop causal explanations.

Apr 14, 2017 Publishers Weekly  A version of this article appeared in the 04/17/2017 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline: Sales Bounce for Board Books

It looks like board books (were) popular gifts for Easter this year. At outlets that report to NPD BookScan, unit sales of the format were 83% higher in the week ended Apr. 9, 2017, than in the comparable week in 2016, contributing to a 13% increase in total unit sales. The juvenile categories were the biggest beneficiaries of the board book bonanza: unit sales of juvenile fiction books were 39% higher and juvenile nonfiction sales were 33% higher than in the comparable week last year. Three of the week’s top-selling fiction titles were board books, led by Happy Easter Mouse by Laura Numeroff and Felicia Bond, which sold more than 16,000 copies, putting it in second place on the juvenile fiction bestseller list. In juvenile nonfiction, The Animals board book was the top title, selling almost 11,000 copies to edge out Easter Eggstravaganza Mad Libs by Roger Price, which sold slightly more than 10,000 copies. And it wasn’t only board books that sold well in the week: three editions of Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why sold more than 54,000 copies, aided by the debut of the Netflix television adaptation.

The nominees in the Children’s Specialty Bookstore category are: Bank Street Book Store in New York, N.Y.; Blue Bunny Books and Toys in Dedham, Mass.; Blue Manatee Children’s Bookstore in Cincinnati, Ohio; Books of Wonder in New York, N.Y.; Children’s Book World in Haverford, Pa.; Children’s Book World in Los Angeles, Calif.; Cover to Cover in Columbus, Ohio; Green Bean Books in Portland, Ore.; Magic Tree Bookstore in Oak Park, Ill.; Monkey See, Monkey Do…Children’s Bookstore in Clarence, N.Y.; Once Upon a Storybook in Tustin, Calif.; Red Balloon Bookshop in St. Paul, Minn.; Second Star To The Right in Denver, Colo.; Spellbound Children’s Bookshop in Asheville, N.C.; Stories in Brooklyn, N.Y.; The Children’s Bookstore in Baltimore, Md.; The Curious Reader in Glen Rock, N.J.; The French Library in New Orleans, La.; and The Reading Bug in San Carlos, Calif.

Apr 17, 2017  Full article from Publishers Weekly

Fun at Cynthia Compton's Store

Cynthia is the mom of 4 kids, the walker of 5 dogs, and the owner of 4 Kids Books & Toys in Zionsville, Indiana. The 2600 sq. ft. children's store was founded in 2003, and hosts daily story times and events, birthday parties, book clubs and a large summer reading program. She is a current board member of the American Specialty Toy Retailers Assn, a past president of the Great Lakes Bookseller Association, and her store was honored with the Pannell Award in 2013.

Like most children’s stores, we rely on regular story times and authorless events to keep our regulars stopping in. Here at 4 Kids, we host an unchanging weekly schedule, as follows:

Mondays: Paint-a-Story, Tuesdays: Stories & Snacks, Thursdays: Silly Songs & Stories, Fridays: Gymboree Art Class

Wednesdays are reserved for private play groups in our party/event room, “special events” and large order deliveries (because I still *believe* that I can direct when pallets will arrive… see me later about the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and my plan to Whole 30 just any day now…)

The most popular of our events is the Monday morning Paint-a-Story session, and I’m posting today just as this event is finishing up. So yes, I do see that there is blue paint in my hair and gluey fingerprints on my skirt, and yes, I meant for my manicure to be green. Thanks for noticing. We didn’t start out planning for this to be such an art-travaganza, but it owns that moniker proudly. Each week, about 30–35 kids attend with their moms, grandmothers (lots more of these lately, that’s another post, I think) and nannies. There’s another dozen or so “pumpkin seaters,” or babies in carriers and strollers, and the occasional dad. 

Read more from Cynthia's Publishers Weekly blog article, April 19th, 2017, at ShelfTalker "in which children's booksellers ponder all things literary, artistic, and mercantile."

FROM Publishing Perspectives: In Feature Articles by Alastair Horne April 6, 2017

In the space of nine months, the independent Scottish publisher 404 Ink has gained extensive media coverage and an endorsement from Margaret Atwood for its Nasty Women anthology of essays on womanhood today.

What Margaret Atwood calls ‘an essential window into many of the hazard-strewn worlds younger women are living in right now’ propels a new publisher to success.  Heather McDaid, left, and Laura Jones created their 404 Ink publishing venture in response to Donald Trump’s ‘nasty woman’ campaign comment. Image Alastair Horne

Publishing Perspectives spoke with 404 Ink founders Laura Jones and Heather McDaid at last month’s London Book Fair. Jones and McDaid are in their mid-20s, and both of 404 Ink’s publications so far–Nasty Women and the first issue of an eponymous six-monthly literary magazine–have used crowdfunding models. The magazine gets donations through the Patreon subscription service, and the anthology was funded by a Kickstarter campaign that raised nearly four times the £6,000 (US$7,496) initially requested.

Publishing Perspectives is a leading source of information on the international book publishing business.

Nielsen, which tracks book sales in several countries, released 2016 figures to coincide with this week’s London Book Fair. They show a mixed bag: physical sales are up in the UK, US and Ireland but down in Italy, Spain, Australia and South Africa. 

It seems the UK and US can thank a year of political turbulence in part for their increase in print sales. In the UK, parodies such as Five on Brexit Island, as well as children’s titles and lifestyle books, helped sales climb by 2.3%. In the US, religious and self-help titles contributed to a 1.3% rise. Read the article in The Guardian.