Editorial 128: May 2001

The National Literacy Trust is calling for a ‘national commitment’ to support early language development for our youngest children. ‘Language is the key to learning,’ their press release tells us. ‘Children who fail to develop adequate speech and language skills in the first years of life are far more likely to experience reading problems at school compared to those who grow up in a language-rich environment.’

Whilst ‘language-rich’ is a loathsome phrase that beggars definition (as in ‘cotton-rich’ or ‘wool-rich’ for chain store socks), BfK could not agree more that we need, as the National Literacy Trust has it, ‘a national commitment to ensure that all parents and carers of 0-3 year olds and our communities are able to support children’s language development from the earliest age.’

The Trust is, we are told, ‘setting up a national steering group in order to focus attention on the issue and will be producing a “good ideas” guide for professionals working with parents and carers in order to arm them with information and practical advice about introducing children to books and reading from the earliest age.’

But just how much do we know about children’s responses to books ‘from the earliest age’? In the 1970s pioneering New Zealanders, Dorothy Neal White and Dorothy Butler and Australian, Virginia Lowe, described in detail the part books played in the early lives of the children they observed, Cushla, Carol and Rebecca. However, the generally disappointing standard of discussion of books for the very young suggests that the relationship between early developmental issues and first books is not much known about or considered.

In the next issue of BfK, we will then be taking a look at the research evidence to date in this area. We will also be featuring some recent board books as well as old favourites. And, as part of our focus on early development, we will be publishing the first part of five-month-old Jack McKeone’s reading diary, as observed and recorded by his father.

For Melanie Klein, who applied Freud’s findings to the analysis of small children and developed play techniques which opened the door to their unconscious, symbolization occurs in an early developmental stage and is the outcome of anxiety*. The child’s sense of loss can, in good enough development, be filled with her/his own resources, ie the use of symbols enables the child to explore anxiety and explore the world via symbolic activity. The capacity to symbolise which is the basis of creativity, can be seen in small children via verbal activity and play. Their interaction with books is a fruitful area for further investigation.

*‘The Importance of Symbol Formation in the Development of the Ego’ (1930), pp 219-232 in Volume I: Love, Guilt and Reparation by Melanie Klein.