I know I don’t read enough or even pick up a book in the baby room sometimes
Theme 2: Defining and understanding early reading in practice
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4.2. Theme 2: Defining and understanding early reading in practiceEarly reading is the bit before they read in school (Ella) Reading is so important, yet, if I am going to be really honest, so misunderstood. (Focus Group Workshop 1) This section analyses and presents the findings relating to the theme of the practitioners’ perceptions of early reading; what this means for them in everyday practice and how this is influencing pedagogy and provision with under-threes from the data sources. The data reveals that a wide range of early reading experiences are being offered to under-threes in practice. This includes activities such as “nursery rhymes; puppets; story props; treasure baskets; action rhymes; listening games; Toddler Talk; story sacks; music and musical instruments” alongside examples of extending language activities. This suggests that the practitioners are supporting early reading development for under-threes with access to a range of daily early reading activities. Yet on deeper inspection of the data, the practitioners did not appear to be consciously linking these activities with the children’s development in reading. Many practitioners raised the issue of their lack of understanding surrounding early reading for under-threes as a complex challenge, which appeared to influence their practice. This Zine entry highlights one perception of reading from the practitioner: Dear Zoo story and story props out today. Read the story to the toddlers and used the props, left them out on the carpet area with some zoo animals also for free exploration. Lots of exploring happening – we have 2 hard back copies so the toddlers can easily turn the pages and look at the pictures. (Practitioner) sits with the children and gets them really excited in what animal comes next. One toddler is just not interested in joining in with the story at all and doesn’t sit down to listen but goes over to the table and seems to enjoy turning the pages of the book. (The practitioner) encourages the toddler to come and join in with his friends. (Zine 3)
This illustration emphasises that joining in with the story is perceived as more important than the act of the child enjoying turning the pages and looking at the pictures independently. The way this is annotated in the Zine denotes a negative opinion of the toddler not being interested in joining in with the story and wanting to engage more with the book by himself. Yet having stated that the toddler is enjoying this activity, the practitioner still encourages the toddler to do something he is not particularly interested in. This is another example of a practitioner missing the opportunity to respond to the cues from a toddler, when engaged in a reading activity, as previously discussed in this chapter. This toddler appears to be enjoying turning the pages of the book and looking at the pictures. It is possible, with more careful observation, to identify that the toddler may have been listening to the story and following the story as it was being told or indeed just having fun looking at the pictures of a familiar book, all of which is a valuable early reading activity in itself, described by Straub (2009) and Arizpe and Styles (2016). Another extract from one of the Zines illustrates this further: Circle time today, shared story from yesterday and the children remembered the ending of the story. They got up and stomped like the bear. This was really exciting as the 2 year olds went straight to the back of the book to look at the ending. Having the book out all the time for them to share with each other has supported their understanding in beginnings and endings of the story and they have carried on sharing this story with each other, even though they are just looking at the pictures. (Zine 1)
The experiences noted by the practitioners here are precious examples of learning for these two-year-olds, as it is clear that these young children are sequencing the story, linking actions to the story, picking out the key characters in the story and enjoying the pictures in the book. Nevertheless, it is worrying that the practitioner did not seem to value this learning, evident in her comment “just looking at the pictures”. Conversely, the practitioner then demonstrates her perception of reading by using the words “even though”. This strongly suggests that the practitioner did not recognise the real value in reading pictures (Arizpe and Styles, 2016). The entry continues: I have to say that these 2 year olds spent a long time looking at the pictures and concentrated on turning the pages, going to the back to see the last picture often and then starting again from the beginning. This was really interesting for me as perhaps I wouldn’t have noticed this previously? As they were all interested, we spent a long time on this activity and it was really enjoyable – lots of language and talk and spent a long time concentrating. I took some lovely photos also. This exemplifies the practitioner’s perception of early reading and her understanding of the value of shared interactions, as the practitioner is now noticing children enjoying looking at pictures and is also observing that these two-year-olds are engaged in this activity for a prolonged period as a learning activity of their choice. What is particularly interesting here is that this learning and concentration has encouraged her to participate with the children for longer on this activity. Trivette et al., (2010) note that the longer children stay engaged in a book reading activity, the more the adult encourages participation, often resulting in a much richer reading experience, supporting language and brain development, which is evident in this particular entry relating to “lots of language and talk” as a benefit. Similarly, Fox (2001) advocates that “read-aloud sessions, sharing the book and looking at pictures helps to develop young children’s ability to concentrate at length” (p. 16), which the practitioner noted here. The findings also reveal that listening walks and environmental print activities are offered to young children from the age ranges of two plus to support early reading development. McMahon Giles and Wellhousen Tunks (2010) advocate that “early encounters with environmental print, words, and other graphic symbols found in children’s surroundings are acknowledged as their first concrete exposures to written language” (p. 23). Subsequently, Glen et al., (2006), Horner (2005) and Reutzel et al., (2003) propose that children who are immersed in print in context, will often thrive in their literacy development. The data and the research therefore suggest that the practitioners are supporting two-year-olds with their early reading development in providing environmental print walks as meaningful activities. Centrally, the practitioners in this research study define early reading as the foundations or a set of activities young children engage in before they read, such as listening and communicating, singing songs, rhyming activities, sharing books and phonics. This illustrates that the practitioners obviously do not view these activities as ‘reading’ as they consider them to be ‘pre-reading activities’ and less important, which is an important finding in itself. Ella defines early reading as: Early reading is all those things you do to support children in their reading development – singing nursery rhymes to teach them about rhyming and that words have meaning, letters of their names and that there is print all around them. Overall, the practitioners describe many activities to illustrate their definitions of ‘early reading’, such as “rhyming, matching sounds, singing nursery rhymes, initial sounds in their names” (Jan), “singing nursery rhymes to teach them about rhyming and that words have meaning, initial sounds in their names” (Lily), “learning to read by singing nursery rhymes to learn about rhyming and patterns in words” (Maria). Here, practitioners are referring to the patterns and sounds in language, alphabet and phonological knowledge as important aspects for supporting children with reading, which is aligned with Dunn’s (2014) suggestion that rhymes guide children to the shapes, sounds and patterns of words, which demonstrates some understanding of reading practices. Zine entries also list activities such as “clapping syllables of names”, “self-registration” and “playing rhyming games”. The following Zine entry identifies talking about the cover of the story, the illustrations and the repetition; children being encouraged to join in and read along with the story: 
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