Early Childhood Services' ELEVATE

Building Blocks of Early Literacy: A Dive into Vital Skills with Maranda Schoppert

• Inette B. and Jennifer F. • Season 1 • Episode 3

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Join hosts Inette Bolden and Jennifer Ferreira as they welcome Maranda Schoppert, Program Manager for Early Literacy and Children's Services at Montgomery County Public Libraries. With over 11 years of experience working with young children and caregivers, Maranda brings valuable insights into the foundational skills that set children on the path to becoming confident readers.

In this episode, listeners will discover what early literacy truly means, why it matters before a child can even read, and how families and educators can nurture these skills through everyday activities.

Inette Bolden:

Unlock the magic of early childhood with Elevate. This podcast is brought to you by Early Childhood Services, a program within Montgomery County, Maryland's Department of Health and Human Services. We are dedicated to empowering parents and educators with the knowledge and tools to nurture the next generation. I'm Inette Bolden and I'm Jennifer.

Jennifer Ferreira:

Ferreira, and we're your hosts of Elevate. Today we're diving into a topic that's close to the hearts of many families and classrooms early literacy. Joining us today is Miranda Schoppert, program Manager for Early Literacy and Children's Services for Montgomery County Public Libraries. She has been working with young children and their caregivers for over 11 years, creating programs that spark joy, imagination and foundational reading skills. As the Program Manager for Early Literacy and children's services, miranda works to implement system-wide programming and initiatives for youth ages 0 through 12 throughout the library system's 21 branches and beyond. She has presented at the Maryland Library Association Yearly Conference and the American Library Association LibLearnX Conference, written for Washington Family Magazine and American Libraries Magazine. Miranda enjoys connecting people with resources and working with local outreach groups to bring county services to the MCPL community. Welcome to the show, miranda.

Maranda Schoppert:

Thank you, I'm so excited to be here, guys.

Inette Bolden:

We're so excited to have you. So let's start with the basics. What exactly do you mean when you say early literacy?

Maranda Schoppert:

So that's a really good question. You know, those in the field don't realize how many people are not familiar with this term. New parents and caregivers may not truly understand all that early literacy entails To some. We hear the word literacy and we think being able to read, when in fact it's actually so much more.

Inette Bolden:

You're right, that's true. It is so much more. So tell us more about what literacy means.

Maranda Schoppert:

Great. So in a nutshell, early literacy is what children know about communication, the verbal and non nonverbal language, reading and writing before they can read or write. So building good early literacy skills means creating a strong foundation so that when kids begin learning to read and write they have those necessary skills to begin that learning process. So an example in the United States text printed text runs left to right. We turn our pages to the left. So if a child already knows that, you know they're going to turn those pages to the left before entering kindergarten. That's just one less thing we have to worry about on that road to reading.

Jennifer Ferreira:

That makes a lot of sense. Even something as simple as knowing how to hold a book or which direction to turn the pages can make a big difference. What are the most important literacy skills children develop before they actually learn to read?

Maranda Schoppert:

So there are six early literacy skills that early literacy specialists split into two separate categories. There are constrained skills, or those skills that you master, that you memorize, and then there are those unconstrained skills, those skills that you continue to learn throughout your life.

Jennifer Ferreira:

Very interesting. So what happens to be those six skills?

Maranda Schoppert:

Well, let's start with the constraint skills. So the constraint our first constraint skill I'll tell you about is print awareness. So print awareness means knowing that printed words have meaning, that they follow patterns, that they're different from pictures and that they represent spoken words. This can include knowing print conventions, like knowing when the book is upside down or that we flip those pages to the left.

Maranda Schoppert:

Letter knowledge would be the second constrained skill, that skill that you memorize. And this means recognizing that letters are different from one another, that the same letter, an uppercase A and a lowercase a they can look different but they are both still the letter A, and also that those letters have names and represent sounds. And the third constrained skill, those skills you memorize is phonological awareness. This is knowing that words are made up of sounds and being able to break those words down into sounds and then manipulate them. Also recognizing rhyming words, words with same sound. At the beginning, those are all important parts of learning phonological awareness, Wow.

Jennifer Ferreira:

I personally just feel that I learned so much. That is very interesting. So you mentioned the next skills are unconstrained skills. Can you share more about that with?

Maranda Schoppert:

us Absolutely so. Like I said, those unconstrained skills are skills that you're continuing to learn throughout your life. We are continuing to learn these skills, and one of the first three is print motivation. So how do I explain this? A child who is interested in um and enjoys books from an early age is a child that's likely to spend more time reading. So really, very simply, um, print motivation is that love of reading, building a love of reading, and we know, as adults, we can always come back to that love of reading if we lose it along the way, right?

Maranda Schoppert:

The second skill, the second unconstrained skill that we're continually learning I'm continually learning every day is vocabulary, and this is basically knowing the meanings of words, actions and adjectives, feelings, concepts, ideas, not just things. It's much, much easier to read a word you've heard before, read a word you've heard before. Children can make sense of what they're sounding out when they were already familiar with words and have a context for it. And then the final unconstrained skill, that final skill we are always learning, is background knowledge, and this is basically prior knowledge about anything. So when we know or have that foundational knowledge of something, it's so much easier to build comprehension skills.

Maranda Schoppert:

You can choose the meaning between words when you know what, when you have that background knowledge. So, for example, the word part P a RT, is it a part in your hair or is it a role in a play? You're going to play your part in a play. You can make inferences from text when you have background knowledge. So why would someone's stomach growl? The background knowledge is because they're hungry. Your stomach me noises when you're hungry well.

Inette Bolden:

Thank you for breaking down all of those six skills. One of the ones that stuck out to me the most is how kids are more likely to recognize and read a word they've heard before, even if it seems like they're not fully paying attention. I think that's really important for families as well as early childhood educators in the classroom. When a child may not be paying attention during circle time, but they're hearing it, that exposure matters. So why is early literacy so critical for long-term academic success?

Maranda Schoppert:

Oh yeah so let's look at a child's brain development to answer this question. In the first year of life, a child's brain doubles in size and then by age three, the brain has grown to an incredible 80% of its adult size. And then by the age of five only two years later the brain has reached 90% of its full adult size. So it's practically full grown by the time a child is five years old. So when we think about early literacy and why it's so critical for long term academic success, it's not really hard to see that laying that strong foundation in these early years, when that child's brain is a sponge and able to absorb such huge amounts of information, is so important.

Inette Bolden:

Wow, I really love learning all about brain development. This really puts things into perspective. It's incredible to think about how much a child's brain is already developed by age five. It really highlights why those early learning experiences matter so much. Speaking of early learning experiences, can you describe some of the programs or story times that you offer at the libraries?

Maranda Schoppert:

Oh, yes, now I'm going to get on my soapbox, right. So early literacy is just so important to libraries. It's important to me for sure, it's a large part of our 2023 to 2026 strategic plan that children under five are ready to enter kindergarten. And to meet this goal we have a lot of programming going on. So let me talk about some of our system-wide initiatives that happen at you know, all of our branches, or throughout our 21 library system branches. The first one is our Hatchlings Parent Workshop. So Hatchlings is a three-part series designed for expectant parents and parents with babies, zero to four months. In these series of workshops, parents get to explore ways to support baby's development with playful early learning activities. So we're actually catching you before baby's even born, right from when you're expecting, building those good habits through four months with this workshop. It's one that's near and dear to my heart.

Maranda Schoppert:

Another initiative that we have at the library is our longstanding 1000 books before kindergarten. This is just a really fun and interactive way to help prepare your child for kindergarten by completing 1,000 early learning activities together before entering school. And I know 1,000, it seems like a lot, it seems daunting, but just think if you read or share books or sing a song, one, two, three before bed. How quickly in that first five years of life you can hit 1000. We have some kiddos that want to complete it again and again before they get to five. Uh, preschool play and learn um, is another initiative that we do for this early literacy group. Um, it's a library-led program for children between three and five years old, with their caregivers. Very important with their caregivers because this program it features a variety of play-based activities and these activities are actually designed to help get preschoolers ready for kindergarten by building essential skills across five early learning domains. The setting for preschool play and learn is very reminiscent of like circle time that they're going to hit in preschool, being able to do independent activities when they get into kindergarten. So it's a great foundational program.

Maranda Schoppert:

And then, of course, our story time. You know the bread and butter of libraries, I think, for children's services. So story times across our system they're generally 25 minutes to 30 minutes. These programs. They're designed to delight children of all ages. They're filled with diverse stories and activities that promote those developing those language skills that we talked about earlier and imagination.

Maranda Schoppert:

And we're really just in story time, encouraging children to develop that lifelong love of reading and just introducing them to the culture of reading. So those are some of the system-wide initiatives, but there are tons of programs happening at each of our individual branches. Several of our libraries, like Gaithersburg and Connie Morella, have first book clubs, just an exposure to how a book club works and how reading in a group might work. Noise library for young children has boogie woogie Wednesdays. We have play dates at the library, performances by local performers and, of course, right now we have summer reading happening and summer reading is for all ages and you can color your world with art by participating. So if you're not signed up for summer reading yet, you should be.

Jennifer Ferreira:

Wow, miranda. That was incredibly insightful. Such great information to share with our parents and community. Many parents often wonder what they can do at home to support their child's literacy. Your opinion what are some practical everyday tips you can share with families?

Maranda Schoppert:

So this is a really great question. You know, in the library we promote five practices of Every Child Ready to Read 2. And Every Child Ready to Read 2 is a caregiver education initiative created by the Public Library Association. Caregiver Education Initiative created by the Public Library Association and the Association for Library Services to Children in order to support parents and caregivers with early literacy development for children birth to age five. So these five practices really weave those six skills I talked about those unconstrained and constrained skills earlier into daily activities.

Jennifer Ferreira:

Amazing, and are there any specific books or a list of books that can help increase literacy for children in certain age groups?

Maranda Schoppert:

Yes, there's actually so many ways to find books and book recommendations at the library. We have librarian curated book lists for babies through high schoolers. We have databases like Novelist, which can actually provide a list of award winners or read-alike. So say your child loves, you know brave, the picture book brave. You can type that in and it'll give you, you know, similar titles either about fire trucks or written in the same way that they might relate to or respond to. You can get reading recommendations straight from our catalog, which is now an app that you can download. So download the MCPL catalog app and also you can even request specially curated recommendations through our Ask a Librarian service.

Inette Bolden:

Wow, those all sound like great and fantastic initiatives. Could you tell us a bit more about the five practices the library promotes?

Maranda Schoppert:

Oh sure, absolutely so. These five practices that we promote are talking, singing, reading, writing and playing with your child every day At the library. We actually incorporate these tips using those practices every day with your child day at the library. We actually incorporate these tips using those practices every day with your child. So I'll just give you a couple examples of each, though this is not exhaustive at all.

Maranda Schoppert:

Um, so let's start with talking talking to our child every day. Why is it so important to talk to our child? They don't't talk back to me. Well, so when we do things like outlining our day I'm folding green socks, I'm cutting up a red apple we're actually helping to build and enlarge our child's vocabulary. Exposing them to new words can help with learning conversational conventions. We can teach children to be expressive that way and have that background knowledge of the way the world works. But very important, don't forget to give your child time to think when talking to your child. It takes a little extra time for your child to respond to a question. A really good tip to keep this in mind is to count slowly to seven before repeating yourself or asking a question, no matter how hard that is. I know I'm a culprit of that too. I continuously ask my four-year-old the same question over and over.

Jennifer Ferreira:

I think we all can relate to that. That is so interesting. I didn't think of the importance of giving a child time to think and I know you mentioned the next one is singing. Can you tell us more about that?

Maranda Schoppert:

voice, because singing actually can help to slow down language. It helps children hear those small sounds in words. Songs break words down into parts. It's easy, fun and a great way to teach simple concepts. So you know there are songs for everything out there, like washing our face this is the way we wash our face. Or learning how plants grow. The green grass grows all around, all around. And, of course, adding more in of that vocabulary building. Another great thing with songs is that you can build songs into your daily routine so that children know when they hear a certain song it's time to do something. So if we hear the song, this is the way we wash our face. Children automatically will connect that with it's time to get ready or it's time to get cleaned up understood.

Jennifer Ferreira:

Wow, that's great. Personally, I love singing and would love to teach any child through singing. And the next topic is reading, which I love. We'd love to hear more about that.

Maranda Schoppert:

Yes, reading, I mean, it seems like the most obvious one. Right, but reading to your child not only will instill that love of reading but will expand their vocabulary and build those comprehension skills. Storybooks teach children about narrative structure, that a story has a beginning, a middle and an end. Reading, or even just sharing books with your children not necessarily reading them front to back also builds that familiarity with books. But don't forget, it is okay again, it's okay to stop reading if your child lose interest. Forcing your child to finish a story, no matter how much we may want to, could associate negative feelings with reading and we only want those positive ones.

Inette Bolden:

That's a really great reminder for early childhood educators as well. When a child loses interest, it's okay to stop. And I'm also part of an adult book club and as an adult, we have to remember that if we lose interest, it's okay. We don't have to finish that book, it's okay. So thank you for that reminder uh, we have two more left.

Maranda Schoppert:

Uh, writing. Writing is the next one, um, but my baby isn't writing. My baby can't write. That's true, very true, um. But writing actually also includes those small motor movements like scribbling or grasping, which help with writing. Later on you can incorporate writing into your daily routine by tracing the letters on a sign, quote unquote, writing out a grocery list, even if it's just scribbles, um. Those are all ways to build that concept of writing and show that written words have meaning. And the last one is fun. In in name too, it's playing, um, playing. Imaginative play encourages you and your child to think creatively about how we use language. You can ask questions during playtime so that your child can practice their oral language and narrative building skills. Just playing, you know, grocery store, for example, we're ringing up those red apples. What am I ringing up A red apple? So playing is also just fun, right?

Jennifer Ferreira:

Oh yeah, it certainly is, and you know, we really appreciate how you broke each of those down, like the reminder to pause and give kids time to respond when talking, or how simple songs can signal routines. Those little tips can really make a big difference. Now, what outreach programs do you offer to families? Can you share the many ways families and educators can connect with the libraries?

Maranda Schoppert:

Oh yeah, there are so many ways to reach out and stay connected with the library. The best way, in my opinion, is to sign up for a library card, because once you sign up, not only can you check out 100 books and have access to all the many, many wonderful electronic resources we have, you are actually automatically enrolled in our library newsletters, which are just jam-packed full of upcoming events and resources. But some other ways you can interact with the library and some of our outreach. We have our wonderful outreach librarians and our library staff that are always connecting with local schools, groups and agencies. To get out into the community. There's social media, of course, always media. You can follow us on any of our social media platforms, like facebook, instagram, youtube, all of the other ones that I'm not naming right now. Um and story. You know, for story time specifically or for specifically learning about early literacy, I would check out the library's resource page for babies, toddlers and preschoolers at wwwmcpllink slash early literacy.

Inette Bolden:

Wow, thank you for sharing so much of your time and expertise with us today, and I've learned a little tidbit I didn't know you can check out a hundred books at one time. That's exciting. So you've given us such valuable insight into how families and educators can build early literacy in simple and meaningful ways, and it has been an absolute pleasure having you on the show today.

Maranda Schoppert:

Thank you so much. I'm always excited to come and talk about children early literacy the library. It's been so much fun. Thank you guys, thank you the library.

Inette Bolden:

It's been so much fun. Thank you guys. Thank you, Thank you. All right. So listeners, be sure to tune in next time as we explore more supports and community resources available to those who nurture young children. Stay informed, inspired and connected to the vibrant community of early childhood enthusiasts. Together, let's build a strong foundation for the future, one child at a time.

Jennifer Ferreira:

And thanks for tuning in to the Elevate podcast today. Stay connected and join the conversation by following us on social media at DHHSCCSS, and we'll see you next time.

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