What’s important to look for when choosing books for infants and toddlers?
In this episode of the Learn With Less podcast, Ayelet is joined by Sara Rizik-Baer, who serves as Deputy Director of the nonprofit organization, Tandem Partners in Early Learning.
Sara has over 10 years of experience working in early education and family engagement. She has held multiple roles in the field as a family literacy specialist, professional development provider, preschool and transitional kindergarten literacy coach, and bilingual classroom teacher.
Sara is fervently passionate about literacy, believes it takes a community to raise a child and wants to support every adult in that community with their ability to contribute to each child’s well-being and academic development. She also firmly believes that early education and specifically early literacy is the key to positive social change.
On this episode, we discuss important factors for choosing books for infants and toddlers, how to actively engage infants and toddlers in early literacy experiences, and Sara’s top tips and resources for choosing excellent books for (and reading them with!) your infant or toddler.
Great resources we mentioned in this podcast episode:
Think Outside The Text, a Learn With Less podcast episode
Lift The Flap For Language Book, from Learn With Less
Be Boy Buzz, by Bell Hooks
Baby Loves Aerospace Engineering, by Ruth Spiro
Baby Loves Coding, by Ruth Spiro
Counting On Community, by Innosanta Nagara
Oh, Oh, Baby Boy, by Janine McBeth
From Head To Toe, by Eric Carle
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, by Eric Carle
My Very First Book of Colors, by Eric Carle
Connect With Us
Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest
Sara and Tandem: Website / Facebook
Text Transcript of this episode
Ayelet: So today I am speaking with Sara Rizik-Baer, who serves as deputy director of the nonprofit organization, Tandem Partners in Early Learning. So Sara has over 10 years of experience working in early childhood education and in family engagement. And she’s passionate about literacy.
She believes that it takes a community to raise a child, and wants to support every adult in that community with their ability to contribute to each child’s wellbeing and academic development. She also firmly believes that early education and specifically early literacy is the key to positive social change. So Sara, welcome. Thank you so much for being here.
Sara: I am so excited to be here and talk about one of the things that I’m absolutely passionate about. Yes. So let’s get started.
Ayelet: Yeah, let’s do it. All right. So I have asked you to come onto the show today to speak to us about choosing books for infants and toddlers. But first I’d love for you to just give us a little bit more of your story. Tell us about you and how you got into the work that you’re doing today.
Sara: Yeah. So I started my career actually as a second grade bilingual teacher. And then I also as a high school teacher and I taught ethnic studies and I taught academic literacy for ninth graders. And both experiences really showed me that as much as my students were so brilliant, many of them were already coming into my classrooms behind in their language and literacy development.
And so they were such geniuses but couldn’t necessarily comprehend all the texts that were given to them, nor express all of the things, the wonderful things they had to say, in writing. And so what I realized was after studying some brain development, that in order to really make a big difference here, I had to start a lot earlier.
And what I really realized was how critical the first five years and really the first three years was in terms of shaping the brain structures absolutely necessary for language and literacy development.
And so I decided to focus my work on their first five years. And so I found Tandem in 2009 and I became a community literacy specialist for Tandem, and absolutely fell madly in love with early education, and language and literacy.
So I started doing professional development with teachers around that, family workshops, just adore being able to work with all of the adults that work with children and really making sure that they really understood how simple it is, yet so meaningful to have engaging conversations and share books with children.
I decided to get a little deeper and so I ended up getting my master’s in language and literacy at Harvard graduate school of education, which was fabulous. And then came back to be a preschool literacy coach for a couple of years and then found my way back to Tandem as deputy director.
And so for the last two years I’ve been able to now work in San Francisco, Alameda, and Contra Costa counties with Tandem to ensuring that all children are entering kindergarten ready to succeed and having the language and literacy skills, as well as early learning skills, in place so that when they enter kindergarten, they really can be successful.
Ayelet: Nice. Well let’s hear just a little bit about some of the characteristics that you look for when choosing books for infants and toddlers. Because I know that Tandem has an amazing program where you share books. And so I want to know, you know, what are some of those features for parents and caregivers to be on the lookout for?
Sara: Yeah, so generally, and I think probably a lot of people know this, but board books are the things you always look for for an infant and toddler. And the reason you want to use board books is because you want babies to feel free to bite the book, to play with the book. You don’t want to have them treat it too precious.
At this age, we really want them to view books as almost like a favorite toy. So they’re getting really comfortable with the idea of holding a book and turning it. And so if they can’t have the ability to play with books like they can a toy, then they look at it as too precious and not something that they might want to gravitate towards.
So we always want to make books really inviting. I also love anything that causes interaction. So, love those lift the flap books, I love books with textures, so anything that really stimulate the baby’s brain both visually as well as kinesthetically and tactilely, as well as books that really, you know, engage the parent with the child.
Some of the books that I love for that for example, is this book Press Here because as a board book, the parent and the child can look together and the book tells exactly the different interactions the child can do with the book, with their hands, other than just necessarily being a story that they can tell. And then lastly, which I always have to advocate for, is really looking for books that feature diversity from a very young age.
Oftentimes we don’t understand how important it is that children are seeing, you know, themselves represented in there and the books that they see or seeing the lives of other children as well. And so even though I love books about, you know, concept books and books about animals, I think if we’re ever looking at books that feature humans, it’s really important that children are seeing a multitude of the different kinds of humans that are there. And so I very much stress the importance of diversity even from a very, very, very, very young age.
Ayelet: Yeah. And I love, I mean, I think that can take the form of obviously things like diversity in gender and sex, diversity in skin color, in age, in ability. Anything else you’d like to add?
Sara: Yeah, all of those things actually. And so there’s a couple of books I even, you know, recommend, uh, for that. That I have the actually features many different kinds of diversity. So for example, Bell Hooks’ Be Boy Buzz is one of my favorite infant and toddler books. That features an African American boy and it’s really done in the language. It’s very colloquial, the way, the way the language is done and it’s very rhythmic, but very simple enough for an infant and toddler.
Also, we love the Baby Loves Aerospace Engineering or Baby Loves Coding. Those books a lot of times featuring little infant girls or toddler girls in STEM topics and they’re done in a way that are very simple, but they’re really getting at really complicated science topics such as aerospace engineering or coding. Yeah.
Another, another couple that I love or any, you know, Innosanto Nagara has written a book called Counting On Community, which is a very small board book, but I love it because within that book it really talks about the community. It’s a very, very simple language, but it really features a multitude of different ethnicities and cultures within that book.
Ayelet: Hmm. Interesting. Okay. So that’s cool. I want to also just say we are focusing specifically on choosing books for infants and toddlers in this episode, but I think it’s really important to remember that there are lots of other ways that families can engage in early literacy experiences outside of books and buying specific books for your family.
You know, obviously going to the library is another lovely way, but there are early literacy experiences all over the place, right. All over our homes. Anything with print, anything with even visual images, right? If you look at the cover of a book or the picture within a frame, there are early literacy experiences that you can attach to that in many ways.
We didn’t talk about this much Sara, in our prep for this interview, but do you have anything just off the cuff to add to that?
Sara: Yeah, and I think, I think really the thing that you always want to keep in mind with any interaction with children at this age, it’s really the amount of what we call “serve and return interactions.” And so what we used to think was it was the amount of words children were simply exposed to from their first five years.
And I mean, that is very true, but what they’ve actually found, it’s mostly more about the interaction between child and adult that really shapes brain chemistry. And so I look at anything as a tool to encourage that interaction, and books happen to be a really great tool for that. However, there is many more ways to do that.
So even when you’re outside with a child in the park and you’re pointing out things that you see, and you’re naming the object that you see out there and you’re having an extended conversation that is, that is really, really important. So, you know, basically what I always say is that what we’ve found is that it’s when children are hearing lots and lots of rich language, more complicated syntax, they’re being interacted in direct and meaningful ways and they’re hearing longer utterances. So I’m much more expanded speech that has really been proven to help language and literacy levels later on. Not only that…
Ayelet: Well, also, you mentioned another thing which was that that rhythm, also, like rhythms within the context of a book, whether that is because it’s a rhyming book or there’s like an interesting sort of rhythm to the way that it’s being written. All of those are really wonderful as well.
Sara: Absolutely. So phonological awareness is what you’re talking about. And that starts development, as you know, very, very, very early on. So children from the very moment they’re born – actually in the third trimester – are already developing parts of their brain, and they’re allowing them to perceive speech and sound. And so they respond a lot to hearing rhythms and different kinds of sounds in their environment.
So songs and music are really, really great for building that. Kind of the way I always, the way I like to describe that too is imagine when you’re a little baby and you’re hearing all these kinds of sounds and you know, they kind of all flow together and actually by six months they’re actually starting to hear the difference, the separations in words. They’re starting to be able to make sense of the different sounds and phonemes and put them into words.
So if I, if I and I, and I’m bilingual, so I speak English and Spanish. And so the way I can kind of give you an example is if I said to you, buenos dias como estas? You know, that’s a really quick, it’s a long string of words, a long string of sounds. But then let’s see what happens if I sing it, if I said, buenos dias, buenos dias, como estas? Como estas?
What happens then is that the children can really slow down and even every single sound and every single syllable is much more exaggerated. And so they’re actually really developing ways in which they can perceive these different sounds and syllables a little bit easier than if they were to just hear it kind of go throughout and that’s another a recommendation I actually have, you know, other than just just singing songs in the car, in the park, anywhere you go.
But I love books that feature songs. So when I go into a classroom and I’m choosing, if I’m going to infant and toddler classroom and I’m doing a read aloud with infants and toddlers, I very much often choose books that I can sing, both for the phonological awareness, but also the way they respond to song. Children just absolutely are engaged with the melodies and sounds and they can really get into it so I very often choose things like that too.
Absolutely. Yeah. Well, and in my own sort of four pillar framework of my Learn With Less curriculum, the whole thing is it’s play, talk, sing and move. Those four elements, you add any more of those four elements to your daily interactions with your child and you’re golden.
All right, so that leads your comment, really leads into the next question I have for you, which is really like, okay, what can we do to actively engage infants and toddlers in early literacy experiences? And we’ll get into specific tips and resources later on.
But what would you say to the parent of a baby who just wants to mouth the book or to the parent of a toddler who with a short attention span or who isn’t, you know, using books “appropriately” or as as a parent would assume books are being used for?
Sara: Yeah. So, um, so actually at Tandem, we have three book sharing tips and actually you can find on our website and that follows that. Exactly. And the first tip that we always say is follow your baby’s pace. So what that means is, is that you’re really, at this age, you want to make book sharing a really enjoyable experience.
Nothing they ever feel forced to do. And so allowing a child to simply explore a book as long as they want to, it’s great. So even if that means they’re biting a book for a full five minutes or they look at it for 30 seconds and then they crawl away, that is okay.
The idea is that you’re practicing and that you’re just showing the fact that the book sharing experience was very enjoyable. And then eventually they’re going to get more and more used to it and they’re going to actually gravitate towards it.
And parents will usually find the more often they just have their children interacting with books alongside with them, the longer they’re actually able to stay and pay attention. But again, as I said, zero to three, allow them to bite the book. It’s okay. And we definitely want to teach about how to care for a book that they get older. And of course you want to build those skills.
But really I just can’t emphasize enough that books should really be seen as a favorite toy. Some personal experience with that. I always, I love to use this example, a very close, close friend of mine Dulce Torres, who actually used to work with at Tandem, had a baby about two years ago. And she said to me, she said, okay, I’m going to just see if all the things that we’ve been teaching parents is true.
And so, she and her husband have been every single night since that baby was born, reading books with the child and not just reading the books, thinking songs right before bedtime. And she told me it is true. She, she, I remember at the child’s one year birthday party, all the friends came, the child had about 60 presents laid out on the table, all sorts of fun things. But we look over and that child is just sitting down flipping through a book: that became the child’s favorite toy. So, I can really testify to the fact that just allowing a kid to explore and have fun with a book really does work.
Ayelet: Yeah. And just to add to that, I think it’s really important what you said about the practice, because number one, like children learn language over a period of time. Children learn to move and crawl and walk over a period of time. These things like sitting down and opening and reading through a book from cover to cover don’t start at the beginning.
They come after this period of watching us, observing us and imitating us and interacting with us and with the book, right? With any kind of object and in this case, a book. And that’s how that process works, right?
That’s how they learn anything, regardless of whether we’re talking about early literacy experiences or movement experiences, or what have you. But I think that’s such an important piece for families to keep in mind is it’s, it’s gonna look different at different stages and it’s supposed to.
Sara: Yes, actually that’s absolutely true. And I think another thing that’s want to add to that is not only following their pace but also following their interest. So if a child is looking at a book you want to go, definitely start talking about that book.
But if the child is actually wants to leave their book and they want to go over to the other part of the room when they’re looking at whatever new toy that auntie brought them, that is also okay.
I think what’s important there is you want to follow their interest and actually talk about things that they’re already gravitating and interested in. So a lot of times parents kind of have their own agenda. I want my baby to know this, I want them to look at this. And that’s just not how babies work. Sometimes they do, but really I can’t emphasize enough about the importance of really just following the interest of the child.
And so even when you’re looking at a book, you know, you might go looking at it, you might see things on the page that you really want to talk about. But if you’re seeing a baby gaze at something else or really finding interest you know, and they might want to stay on the same page with the cat, you know that the furry cat for a really long time.
Great! Stop there and have a conversation about the cat. Yeah. Even if the child can’t talk back, right? They’re obviously very interested in what they’re looking at. And so hearing you associate the word cat with what they’re looking at, talking about the parts of the cat, talking about what a cat does, that is really what the child wants to hear, to your own experiences with a cat. How does the cat sound? Right? There’s so many things.
Ayelet: I have a whole podcast episode about this. It’s called Think Outside the Text, right? We are, we, it’s so linear for us as grownups, right? But we have to think outside what’s in front of us and relate it to our child’s interests and experiences and, and their pace. I love these two tips. All right. Sounds like you have one more for us here.
Sara: Yeah. So, well, yeah. So then I have make it a conversation. Let me follow your baby’s pace number one. And then number two is making a conversation. So that’s what I talking about. That back and forth serve and return interaction. This is where parents can offer extra information about the vocabulary that they’re seeing. This is where a baby can look at something, coo, and the adult responds with a little bit more information. Moreover than that, you know, and they’re looking at an object.
For example, a child may not just want to know about the name of the object, but they might want to know about how it actually functions. And they’ve actually shown that in a lot of studies that a lot of times parents would just name an object, but then don’t go further and talk about it, so again, you’re giving that serve and return interaction.
A child points, a child looks. You not only name the object, but you expand on that object. And we also say, I always tell parents too. I say, ask your child questions. Even if they can’t respond yet, they’re still getting used to the idea that you know, your inflection goes up when you’re asking a question. They’re actually hearing and perceiving and getting used to that you’re pausing, you’re allowing them to interact back, whether they can verbalize it or not.
So yeah, so that’s my second tip is make it a conversation. And then lastly for the third tip is just have fun. So very similar to what you’re saying. You know, make it, this should be as fun for the adult as it is for the child. Have them sit on your lap, have them do the movement, have them make the cat sounds, do the silly voices. The more fun you have with the book, the more fun they’re going to have.
And I can’t, you know, I also want to emphasize that you’re your child’s best literacy and language and model. So not only are they’re hearing rich language from you and, and really perceiving and internalizing that, but your attitude towards reading as well is really, really important to building strong literacy skills. And so if parents are having a lot of fun reading with the kids.
hey’re going to have fun too. And not only that, parents, kids see either parents reading or interacting with text or talking is also really important for their, for their growth. And understanding about the importance of, of books, how fun it can be.
Ayelet: Very nice. Absolutely. Cool. Well, let us take just a brief break to hear a word from our sponsor and then we’re going to hear a few more specific tips from Sara about choosing excellent books for tiny humans and we’ll hear about her favorite resources for parents and caregivers interested in learning more about that topic.
Sara: Great.
Ayelet: Okay, Sara. So let’s hear it. We would like to hear your top tips for parents and caregivers who want guidance, choosing books and early literacy experiences for their little ones. And I know you have a few for like specific ages even, which I think is lovely.
Sara: Yeah. So we definitely know that children develop, you know there’s, there’s a, there’s a continuum of development and so there are really specific characteristics you want to look at the different stages of development. So for babies that are newborn to six months, you really, they’re, they’re still developing their vision and their visual systems in their brains. And so you really want to choose books with simple geometric shapes.
Focusing on simple shapes, support the babies to and identify shapes, symbols and letters and actually develop the visual discrimination that’s going to be really important later on for actually being able to recognize letters and numbers. Children at this age are just obsessed with faces and human faces.
Ayelet: Yup, they’re programmed to look at us. Yes.
Sara: Yeah. The books that feature lots of faces are very engaging for a child. And I even tell families, you can make your own book of your family’s faces that I guarantee kids are going to love. So not only are you building a connection with your family, but you’re actually creating a really strong illiteracy resource that the kids are going to be engaged in.
Ayelet: I love that combining that social emotional element with the early literacy and language and communication. Lovely.
Sara: Yeah. And then for six to 12 months you’re looking for books with rhythmic patterned language. Again, we kind of talked about the importance of phonological awareness and really hearing those sounds and rhymes and so and, and babies are very, very attuned to these kinds of language and they hear it.
So the repetition really encourages the language development even when the child or infant doesn’t yet understand words. So the one that I mentioned before, B-Boy Buzz by Bell Hooks is fantastic for that, classics like Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carle. We all know that one.
But that is, the reason why every child loves that book is because it’s so rhythmic and so pattern and they can really predict what’s going to happen next. I also say in this age, age period, six to 12 months, those lifts the flap books, which are fabulous.
I really helps kids not only engage tactilely with the book, but it’s also helping them to understand cause and effect, right? They say, okay, what happens when I lift this? And all of sudden, something appears. That’s giving them this idea of a cause and effect relationship, which is actually a critical thinking skill, which we can start building as early as six months.
Some really great books for that, I think I mentioned Press Here, before, but my first book of color by Eric Carle’s one of my favorites. Not only is that visually compelling, but there’s tons of flaps and things that they can lift and interact with. Also looking for things with bright images and simple text.
One of one really great one that I love is by Janine Macbeth. This is another, a diverse book. Oh, Oh, Baby Boy. I’m really features… Not only does it have the bright images and the very simple text, but it features a father with a, with a baby boy.
And again, we also really want to include different images of diversity and fathers are absolutely a part of that for 12 to 36 months. I again would say continue through repetitive and predictable books. One of my favorite books to read and I come to an infant/toddler class is From Head to Toe by Eric Carle because over and over again it keeps having the same reframe.
I can do it, I can do it. And babies that are just learning how to talk will start to learn actually how to stay those words. And by the end they get so proud that they can say that full sentence and the end is I can do it. So they can not only do the actions of the animals in the book, but they themselves feel better and they now know how to say, I can do it.
So that’s really great. And then of course, nursery rhyme and poetry books. Fabulous. We’re emphasizing phonological awareness and really learning about patterns, rhythms and rhymes.
Ayelet: Nice. Very nice. Very nice. What about the older, older ones? Older ones. Oh goodness. No, sorry, do you have anything else there, or should we go on to resources?
Sara: Yeah. Resources. We can definitely go into some resources that I, I mean I have be very happy to, to send, uh, some of the other recommendations I have. I always say, you know, a lot of people love Pete the Cat for older children. And again, I can’t emphasize that enough.
I know it’s become a more of a commercialized thing, but one of the reasons they love Pete the Cat books is because it does have that repetitive rhythmic languag, which is incredibly engaging. And children just think Pete is the coolest thing that’s ever walked this earth.
And so they’re all super, all of our Tandem staff know that when they take a Pete the Cat book into a classroom, it’s like a celebrity has just walked in. So I can’t, I can’t, I can’t recommend those ones enough. But we have a full, we have lists of many other really good ones.
So some resources, if you actually go into our tandem website, which you can find at www.tandembayarea.org – We do blog posts every month. And those feature recommendations of books that a lot of our Tandem staff has done. So what they, what they do is they our Tandem staff goes into classrooms all the time.
We do read alouds and so they have really become experts and knowing what really engages children. And so we have developed lots of blog entries that show you books. If you want to have books about numbers, you want to have books about colors, books that feature girl books that feature different ethnicities and cultures. We have lots of blog posts that really talk about why we love these books and how to actually use them with the kids.
Ayelet: What other resources do you do you want to recommend?
Sara: And then the further plug too on the Tandem website, there’s actually a handout that we developed called choosing books for infants and toddlers and that is under the resources tab on our website too.
And so all the stuff I just talked about is right there for you in very simple graphics. Other than our Tandem website, there’s many more good resources.
I really love Colorin Colorado, especially for our bilingual listeners and readers. It is a fabulous website which not only gives really great book recommendations that are in both English and Spanish, but also gives a lot of tips about how to raise your child in bilingual ways. How to really emphasize the importance of home language, which I can’t, is just incredibly important to developing language and literacy skill, so that’s a really fabulous website.
I also think Reading Rocket, I personally use reading rockets a lot when I’m just doing some research and I want to find simple quick tips and quick tricks when I’m developing a workshop or giving recommendations to parents are great.
And then I’ll give one last plug for Blood Orange Press is a, it’s the book publishing company by a local Oakland author Janine Macbeth and she has two books right now that are featured there. Oh boy, baby boy and also a book by Robert Trujillo and these are books that are done by independent local authors and that really fits your diverse characters!
Ayelet: Love it. That sounds, that’s a great collection and well I include all of those in the show notes here on the, on the website. But thank you so much Sara, and thank you to all our participants of the Learn With Less online program who are here listening live and we are going to continue the discussion, as a benefit to your membership, opening up for a Q&A session for you guys in just a minute, but for everyone listening from home or on the go, thanks so much for joining us and we will see you next time.
