The Early Childhood Promise with Dr. Aimee Ketchum & Dr. Crystal Loose

Welcome to Reading Inspires by Reading Is Fundamental.

I'm your host, Dr. Erin Bailey.

This podcast celebrates the power of books and the joy of reading.

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Let's get inspired.

Erin Bailey: Welcome.

Today I am joined by Dr. Amy Ketchum, who is a pediatric occupational therapist all the way from the NICU through high school, and the founder of Amy's Babies, and
Dr. Crystal Luce, who is a former teacher, reading specialist, and administrator, and is now a professor of early learning and leadership at West Chester University.

They co-host the Plant the Seed of Learning podcast, which I'll link before, below for you, and they've written this book right here, The Early Childhood Promise: Sparking Change
for Parents, Early Childhood Professionals, and Policy Makers, which is what we're going to talk about today, and I'll be sure to link the book in the show notes for you as well.

So welcome, Amy and Crystal.

Aimee Ketchum: Thank you.

Thank you so much for having us

Crystal Loose: We're excited to be here today, and especially to support Reading Is Fundamental.

We love it.

We love the organization

Erin Bailey: Amazing.

Thank you.

So this is a topic that I am so passionate about, not only because my background is also in early childhood, but because I'm a parent to three children five and under.

One, two and a half, and five years old.

So your book speaks to me on a very deep level.

So I'd love to start out, can each of you just share a little bit about your professional journey?

What led you to co-author this book together, and how does the mix of having an occupational therapist and an early childhood educator bring together literacy and the message around this book?

So we can start with you, Amy

Aimee Ketchum: Yeah, so I think, I mean, Crystal and I like to often say that we bring together the medical model and the education model, which are both really integral parts of the early child development because development and learning go hand in hand.

You really can't have child development without early learning or vice versa.

It's like mixing two colors of paint.

They're just swirled together and they, they are integral to each other.

So, we bring two different aspects where I really look at sort of the health piece and the child development piece and, you know, what's going on in the brain.

Crystal definitely focuses more-- I'll let Crystal speak for herself, but the education piece, the early learning piece.

So I think we really both complement each other really well.

Crystal Loose: Yeah.

so, I will say first and foremost, literacy is always in the back of my head with everything that I'm doing because I'm a former reading specialist.

So, I've had training in that, and having four kids of my own, four under the age of five, all… I couldn't leave the house very much, so, I did a lot of literacy activities with my kids, and it certainly paid off.

I can tell you they all graduated.

They were all at the top of their class.

So I attribute that to reading and literacy.

And as far as the medical and education model merging I… For me, that started years and years ago when I started Plant a Seed of Learning as a nonprofit.

I worked with a pediatric nurse and we developed a program for parents because we felt like parents birthed the babies, and they weren't quite sure what the, to do with them next.

And some families didn't realize that talking to your baby starts right away, even though they're not responding.

So, that is what led me to Amy, and we had so many connections, and that's why we wrote the book

Erin Bailey: Amazing.

I can relate to that so much.

Like, even though I'm an educator and I have that background, I have a early childhood background, I know all the important things about talking to your baby, it wasn't something that came naturally to me, especially when, not when I had the other children
around, but when I was on maternity leave with any of my three children and it was just me and the baby in the house all day, I had to consciously remind myself, like, "Just narrate what you're doing," even if it's like, "I'm walking down the stairs.

I'm walking into this room.

I'm…" Like, that was kind of how I trained myself to do it because I would forget sometimes. even with a background in education, I would f-
I would kind of forget. I'd go into autopilot, and I'd be having an inner dialogue with myself, and it's like, "Nope, just say it all out loud.

It doesn't matter what you're saying.

Just say it out loud."

Aimee Ketchum: Yeah, that's so important.

And I can't tell you how many parents I work with in the neonatal intensive care unit where I give them books at the bedside and say, "Here's a children's book to read to your baby," and they say, "Why?

Why?

Why would I read…" Yeah.

They don't understand.

They can't talk.

Why am I reading to them?

So it's, yeah, so much education and needs to be done, you know, that parents understand the importance of that

Erin Bailey: Yeah, absolutely.

So o- I mean, on that topic, literacy development starts long before children enter the classroom.

So from your perspective, Crystal, what are the most important early experiences in the first five years, w- we're talking about of life that build that strong foundation of reading and language development?

Crystal Loose: Ah, so we already spoke about it.

Talking to your child builds the oral literacy foundation that is so crucial for reading because you're building the vocabulary, and if you're not talking and doing the early reading with your child, you're not building that vocabulary that's so crucial.

So Erin, you mentioned it.

Narrate everything as you're doing things.

Talk to them, and don't lower your vocabulary.

Children actually start to understand the higher-l- level vocabulary through repetitive use of it, and so you don't have to feel like I need to say, "Oh, that was a big ball." You can say, "That ball is colossal," and they'll eventually start to use that word.

So all of those things, reading and then as they're able to grip things as they get older, so we're talking the preschool years, giving them opportunities to build their fine motor skills.

I can say firsthand that in kindergarten when I was a kindergarten teacher, I had kids tire when… They would get really tired during writing time, and I didn't understand the fine motor skills that were so crucial.

They're still developing when they're little, but the more that you're working with the hand through Play-Doh, through finger painting,
through many activities, you're really supporting their literacy development eventually because writing and literacy go hand-in-hand.

They're like partners.

So, all of those things really build the foundation, the discussions, the reading books every single night.

I say don't skip a night 'cause it only takes five minutes to read those little baby books, and oftentimes the kids will want more and more, and it becomes a habit, and it becomes routine.

And not only are you building those literacy skills, you're building a bonding moment.

So I love that especially because if you don't have that bond, you're missing out on crucial opportunities.

So those things, talking and reading, they're so simple

Erin Bailey: Yeah.

I love the baby books too, especially the ones with real photographs in them, and I always tell families that I'm working with you know, you don't even have to read the whole book.

Don't be stressed about the performance of reading from front to back.

If you have a baby who keeps flipping back to the same page over and over again, that's okay.

You don't even have to read all the words on the page.

You can talk about the photographs or the pictures

Crystal Loose: I love that advice.

And true, the real picture is babies love to look at pictures of other babies.

Yeah.

Erin Bailey: do.

I always wonder what they're thinking when they do that.

Like, do they, are they making that connection like, "That's a baby, and I'm a baby"?

Crystal Loose: I know.

I wonder the same thing.

Yeah

Erin Bailey: So kind of, you touched on this, Crystal, kindergarten readiness.

It gets used all the time.

You share a stat in your book that 40% of kindergartners are not ready when they enter the classroom.

What is kindergarten readiness?

What does that mean?

Well, like, when we're saying 40% of kindergartners aren't ready, like, what does that look like, and why is this such an important predictor of long-term literacy success?

Aimee Ketchum: Yeah.

We're not even really so much talking about, like, knowing your alphabet and how to count to 10.

When we talk about kindergarten readiness and being able to start school with the skills ready to learn, we're talking more about what a lot of people say soft skills executive function.

By that, I mean the working memory, the cognitive flexibility, the ability to have self-control in different situations.

The social-emotional learning where children have some social skills, you know, to interact with other children.

The ability to sit still for a, you know, and attend to an activity, even just for five minutes.

We usually say, like, one minute per year of age.

So by age five, to be able to sit and attend to a lesson for at least five minutes.

To have some concept of, like, their own space, to not get into other children's space.

So a lot of that sensory motor learning needs to have taken place where they sort of understand where their body is in space and have some coordination and control over their body.

Just the ability to walk in a line and, you know, not You know, bump into their peers and, you know, cause everyone to get frustrated.

Understanding waiting their turn, raising their hand, those sort of skills of being a part of a kindergarten classroom is really important.

Also, the motor skills that Crystal was talking about, the fine motor skills, being able to hold a pencil, being able to work the tools of the classroom, like scissors, having some scissor skills which requires both
dexterity and strength, coordination with both hands, that visual-motor integration of being able to string some string through, through like a stringing card or string beads or, you know, do lacing and things like that.

Those are all really important sort of foundational precursor skills for kindergarten.

Think about one teacher, 25 children.

If none of them can zipper their coats or tie their shoes or open their lunch containers, you know, how much extra time that takes for the classroom teacher and how much time that takes away from learning.

So that self-care is really important, too.

I worked in kindergarten, you know, when I first started in the school system as an occupational therapist, I was in mostly kindergarten classes, and children wetting their pants 'cause they couldn't undo their snaps and buttons.

You know, so just thinking of things like that.

Also those sort of early learning foundational skills of understanding language and directionality.

Like if we say we're gonna draw a letter T, put your pencil at the top of the paper, do they know where the top is?

Do they know what it means to say draw a line down?

So giving them that language and having sort of those core concept understanding going into kindergarten is really beneficial, too.

So there's a lot of very s- sort of nuanced aspects to kindergarten readiness that don't require the parent to drill them with flashcards, but require life experiences and lots of opportunities to play with different
things and different sensory experiences and go to museums and go to Please Touch museums and go to parks and use their body and, you know, the full body movements and the fine movements and just having those
experiences with other people and other children where they get that social interaction as well that's gonna prepare them to be in a classroom with other children, and also endurance to get through the entire school day.

Erin Bailey: Yeah.

I love the example especially of putting on their shoes.

It was something I experienced when I taught in Hong Kong, 'cause I worked at- I was a teacher at a IB PYP school.

And in Hong Kong there is a practice, it's a cleanliness practice where you have indoor shoes and outdoor shoes.

So the children, starting at age two when they start formal school there, they have to- when they come in the morning, there's a little area for their shoes, and they take off their outside shoes, and they put on their inside shoes.

And then as the teacher, we also help them do that before they get ready to go home.

So it's twice a, you know, it's the b- morning session and the afternoon that they're changing their shoes.

And in the beginning, as a teacher, that was so much work.

Like, 22, 23 children, trying to help them all put their shoes on.

And I think, like, from a parent perspective, you only have one or two, or Crystal, sometimes four, and you can quickly put on everybody's shoes.

But I quickly saw, like, wow, there is something here.

And it's like to your point, Crystal, it's strengthening those same hand muscles that they're later going to use to writing, to write.

And I will say my kindergarten students in Hong Kong had very nice handwriting, and I wonder if there was a connection there

Aimee Ketchum: Oh, definitely.

Crystal Loose: Yes.

And handwriting's so crucial.

That is really coming back into the school system.

We let it go for a little while, but coming back thankfully

Erin Bailey: And I appreciate the way you shared, it doesn't have to be flashcards.

We're not talking about kindergarten readiness in terms of, like, we're drilling you on your numbers, you're expected to show up day one being able to count, knowing the alphabet.

It happens through play, right?

So your book highlights that, too.

There's a lot of academic pressure right now, testing pressure.

Why is play so important for building up these skills like comprehension, creativity, and social-emotional skills?

Crystal Loose: Well, first of all I love how we're talking a lot about parents and how parents are really the child's first teacher, and what happens at home is a lot of play.

And so as children transition into the formal school setting, they're used to play.

And so it's really nice for the child and important that they continue that play.

And what research is finding is play is so fundamental for so many things, f- mental health, self-regulation.

All of these things are crucial, and it's also building you know, the five Cs, the critical thinking, the communication, the collaboration.

When you think about play that's happening in school systems, whether it's kindergarten, first grade, second grade, even third grade for example, there might be a role ti-
a role-playing type of play, and that role-playing incorporates imagination, fantasy, elaborate communication peer collaboration, memory, because you're pulling from memory.

So all of these things are happening during play, and we're using our brain so frequently, and that is really important.

And also, while children are playing, they're releasing dopamine.

And we know how we feel when we're working out and, you know, the dopamine's released, and you could be feeling really badly, but you exercise, and then you feel great.

Same thing happens with play.

As children are playing, they're releasing this chemical.

It's that feel-good chemical, and actually research has shown it enhances memory.

So if you're incorporating a type of play during activities at school, you're actually helping with memory retention.

And then one final area when you're thinking about the brain, you're thinking about the prefrontal cortex.

So, so, so important for decision-making.

And as I mentioned earlier, that really is self-regulation when you're at your earliest years.

So all of this happens through play.

And I can definitely think back to my years as a kindergarten teacher and the fun stations or centers, you can call it either thing.

Play is happening at each of those stations, and at each of those stations while they're playing, it could be the dramatic play center, it could be the writing center, it could be the literacy center, it could be the STEM center.

There's play happening, but they're also learning the standards during play.

And so that's why I love play so much, and I think we need to play more.

Erin Bailey: Yeah.

It's really important.

I've brought this topic up to quite a few guests on the podcast.

We're very heavily steeped in the science of reading, right, movement right now, and you call it learning sciences in your book too, which I appreciate, because it's more than just the science of reading.

It's really, like, the science of learning.

But there seems to be some k- kind of notion that science of reading or science of learning and play do not go hand-in-hand, that one is, like, direct instruction, and the other one is more inquiry and play-based.

Like, what are your thoughts on that?

Crystal Loose: well, I s- with- when you think about science of reading, if you're thinking specifically on that you're thinking a lot of phonemic awareness and phonological awareness.

And what happened for a long time is we were heavily based on when you're learning to read, you're looking at the pictures, you're using the meaning.

Sometimes you're covering up the words to make educated guesses based on the structure of the sentence.

We used to call it MSV, so meaning, structure, visual cues, and that?

originated from Marie Clay a long time ago, and she was an amazing researcher.

I think we went too heavy to one side and maybe not enough with the phonemic awareness development.

But when you think about all of the programs that are happening in schools now I think of one, Fundations.

That's heavily used in a lot of school systems.

You can incorporate play into those activities.

Because those activities are so repetitive, they're the same every day, you can kind of put a spin on it where you're adding a little bit of play.

I think that's essential because with repetition, kids can get a little bored, and so my recommendation is to add some movement into it.

S- any type of play, action,

Erin Bailey: and the repetition can happen through play, right?

I know reading is fundamental.

We have a lot of resources.

Let's say you're the teacher and you already taught the phonics lesson, and now we have resources like we made a phonics Go Fish game.

So you can play, you can reinforce and repeat rather than, you know, drilling with flashcards or other things, you can play it through the Go Fish game or we have a it's kind of like
a four in- four in a row, almost like Connect Four, but it's four in a row or Sink the Ship, things that are modeled after some popular games that kids may already be familiar with.

But you can actually use that to reinforce a phonics skill that you've taught

Crystal Loose: Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely

Aimee Ketchum: Yeah, and can I just add, when you add play, when it's sensory-based play, you're adding another method of learning.

You're adding new pathways to the brain connectivity.

You're creating new synapses from parts of the brain that might not be stimulated by the lesson itself if you didn't add a sensory motor play component to it.

So when you add something tactile or movement-based or a different type of auditory or visual stimuli, the child's gonna learn in a couple different ways the same content just, you know, forming more neural connections in the brain

Erin Bailey: Yeah.

And I hope for our educators right now they're hearing that there is research, empirical research, on the effectiveness of play for learning and the effectiveness of using multi-sensory techniques for learning.

So you should absolutely consider those a part of science of reading so Crystal, you said something and my mind lighted up.

You said dopamine, and I automatically thought of screen time, 'cause it's very controversial, I often refer to screens as dopamine factories.

But that's a big concern for parents today and maybe a little c- controversial.

I've talked about it on the podcast quite a bit and you know my stance on it.

But what does the research tell us about how excessive screen time can impact early language and literacy development, and what are some healthier alternatives for families that they can incorporate in home?

Crystal Loose: Oh, I, yeah.

We-- I know Amy and I are both, well, we're all so passionate about this topic and what it has done in education.

I truly think screen time has impacted test scores because we're more focused on screens than ever rather than reading books.

Sometimes we're just using screens to read, and there's something about the paper book that's different.

Our brain's processing it differently.

But in our book, we do talk about several studies, if you love research.

One in particular took place in Japan and they looked at the prefrontal cortex and what was happening during screen time, in particular with a tablet, because our youngest learners are often on tablets.

And we think, "Oh, tablets. Okay, they're moving, they're interacting." However this is often passive interaction with the screen.

And so, the study in Japan found that one-year-olds, and I'm looking at the book 'cause I don't wanna misquote this.

One-year-olds who are exposed to screens for more than an hour each day, which is pretty easy to do because we're all busy people they had develop- more developmental delays than those who experience screen-free

Erin Bailey: Wow

Crystal Loose: So playtime, it, and we'll go back to play again, it's really important in those younger years that they're using their
imagination and they're not relying on the screens because the screens become the imagination for the child, and we don't want that.

We want them to develop those critical thinking skills that come without screens.

Then there are also they looked at delays later at age two and four years of age.

And so the same study tracked kids further on, and they found additional delays in communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem-solving, and social skills.

And if you think about screens and what they do kids aren't using their hands, which are so important and we need it for development.

They're not communicating.

Like, if you watch a child at play, even if they're playing by themselves, they're communicating with the dolls or the cars or the action figures.

It's the best thing ever.

I love it.

So they're not developing those communication skills, even with their peers because usually when you're interacting with a screen, it's you and the screen.

And we talked about problem-solving.

Screen time doesn't always allow the intricate problem-solving that takes place in play.

Let's think about STEM play and what happens when children are building blocks.

Sure, they can do puzzles, they can build things on screens, but it's not the same as interacting with the actual things because they're not getting that three-dimensional interaction.

Erin Bailey: That goes back to the fine motor.

Crystal Loose: Yes.

Everything keeps

Erin Bailey: And the gro- and the gross motor.

You know, if you're swiping on a screen, you're not developing your leg muscles, your upper arm muscles

Crystal Loose: Yes.

Yeah So, we do talk about in our book the categories of screen time, and so, I think this is important for parents to understand.

We all use screen time, but when you think about screen time, there's just the passive interaction with screens, not the best.

Interactive is when more for gaming, so when kids are playing games, and, you know, we like to have kids play alphabet games or whatever.

That, that does happen a little bit.

Communication area of screen time happens.

Like right now, we're on Zoom.

That isn't the most terrible thing.

But then content creation, and so, this is a little higher usage in the screen setting.

And so they might be creating art on the screen, and sometimes that's beneficial for children.

I guess if you're going to do screen time as parents, I would say make sure it's interactive, like you're sitting there with the child and you can talk about it and what's happening during screen time.

W- we always say, Amy and I always say, "Parents are really busy," and so we understand because we've been there.

My kids watch TV.

I put them in front of the screen because I had to do things sometimes.

Just keep in mind how much screen time they're getting, and they're continually adapting how much screen time children should have.

Erin Bailey: Yeah,

Crystal Loose: the, Academy of Pediatrics is looking at that continuously because we're researching it more.

And I know even in the school systems right now, they're think- rethinking screens, and some schools are getting rid of them totally.

We're moving, or should I say the pendulum is swinging back to the old ways.

Before schools were rushing out to buy screens for students because we felt we had to keep up with technology, but now we're starting to move the other way because we've witnessed what has happened as a result of screens.

Erin Bailey: Yeah,

Crystal Loose: So I, I would say for parents, putting a book in a child's hand is the best thing you could do for them or something they can manipulate with their hands.

Erin Bailey: A couple questions on that.

Does the size of the screen matter?

Like, your example of wa- TV or watching a movie, that's, like, on a larger size.

Is that better than, say, a tablet or a phone?

Crystal Loose: Oh, I love this question.

Maybe Amy can answer this, but I will say this.

Bigger screens, and you think about TV programming.

One thing that's really important when… I don't know if the screen size matters, but the content is what matters.

So think about the content, and think about what children are watching, and if it's, like, really quick, that is really interfering with children's attention spans.

And so technology has really affected, and screen times, attention spans in the classroom.

So it's not that children can't learn, it's that we have to teach in a different way to to accommodate student attention spans in the classroom setting today.

And so when you think about little kids' programming, think about the different shows.

Bluey is much more slower-moving than some of the other children's programs where it's, like, really fast and switching.

So, that would be my only suggestion.

I don't really know about screen size and how that affects the eyes or anything of that nature

Aimee Ketchum: The only thing I've read on that topic is larger screens facilitate easier co-viewing, where a parent or sibling could potentially watch a h- a program with a child that would, you know, be a
more … something that would be more preferable of, like, a slower pace, not the fast cuts, and something that would tell a story from start to finish would be considered more of a preferable program to watch
with a child, and then also have that co-viewing, versus where they're just on a screen and they're kind of in their own little world and, you know, you can't really even get in there and watch with them.

So larger screens could facilitate a little more co-viewing, where you have that shared experience and you could que- ask questions about, "What do you think's gonna happen next?" Or even pause it or refer to it later to have a conversation.

So there could potentially be some benefits to a larger screen just on that vein.

Erin Bailey: Yeah.

You almost answered my f- other follow-up question perfectly.

So I, you know, am pretty anti-screens, as you can tell.

I don't use them with the younger two, except with the two and a half year old, we do look at photographs together.

And I see that as kind of a literacy activity because his school, his daycare will send photographs of what they did throughout the day.

And so then he and I will look at them together, and it's really sweet 'cause he can name all the ki- he can name all of his classmates, and then I'll ask, be able to ask him questions about his day and what they were doing in that activity.

And I see that as, like, h- practice with his language skills, storytelling, like, beginning, middle, end

Crystal Loose: I

Aimee Ketchum: that is a higher quality use of screens.

Absolutely.

Yeah

Crystal Loose: I think that's really important because oftentimes when those younger kids come home from school and you say, "What did you do today in school?" And they'll say, "I don't remember." What?

So I love the co-discussion with the pictures.

I think that's an incredible idea and very beneficial

Erin Bailey: Yeah.

And the other thing is, you know, the five-year-old, she's been doing imaginary play for many years now.

The two-and-a-half-year-old, he's just starting, and I notice, same to my daughter, his first imaginary play is playing school, and he'll be in the role of the teacher.

And very similar to looking at the photographs, the first thing he does is, like, take attendance, and he'll have a little, you know, pretend clipboard and be rattling off the names of his classmates and, you know, "Remy's not here today, and not here today."

Crystal Loose: I love that.

I love how they, it, they're pulling from memory,

Aimee Ketchum: Add a

Crystal Loose: is so amazing and so important.

Aimee Ketchum: We love it

Crystal Loose: Yeah.

Erin Bailey: But it, yeah, it's exactly what you said.

Clearly, you know, having background in this, it was actually my husband who selected our daycare, but I like to say I taught him very well.

He went in, you know, knowing what questions to ask and what to look like.

But it's made me think a lot about what other families are facing when they think about childcare and setting up their child for success in kindergarten and beyond.

So, you know, in your book, you both ad- advocate for systemic change in early childhood education.

What policy changes do you believe are the most urgently needed to support young children, families, teachers?

Especially, you know, as I mentioned, clearly my husband and I knew what to look for in a setting.

Like, what about for those who might not have that, or those with different backgrounds who might not have access?

Aimee Ketchum: Yeah, I am so glad you asked this question.

So our book, literally our subtitle is Sparking Change for Parents, Early Childhood Professionals, and Policy Makers.

So we talk, we do talk a lot about policy, and we talk a lot about the need for change.

And I just, you know, taking a big step back, I would say three things that we really advocate for when it comes to change in early childhood policy, and it has to start with paid parental leave.

Right now, I can't tell you how many moms I have going back to work while their baby is still in the hospital in the NICU.

They come and give birth, and two weeks later they're back at work.

And who is holding and bonding and caring for their baby?

There's nobody there.

So, you know, the data shows how beneficial kangaroo care is, and skin-to-skin contact.

And when the mom and dad are back at work two weeks post having a baby, we lose all the opportunity for early bonding and attachment.

So there's just so many reasons why we need to start with paid parental leave for all parents, where they can hold onto their job and also still get paid.

I think we're the only industrialized nation that does not provide that.

So that's where we would absolutely start.

We also need to expand childcare subsidies so that families aren't so taxed with childcare.

The cost of childcare is not supposed to exceed 7% of their household income.

But some families are paying 25% and more, which is really painful for a young family to have to pay that much for quality childcare.

So it causes too many families to find childcare that is not as high quality or sometimes even unsafe situations for the children.

It causes parents to sometimes have to work from home or jeopardize their job, which jeopardizes the workforce.

So again, tons and tons of reasons why, but we really need to think about expanding childcare subsidies and better supporting parents in childcare so that they can go work and, you know, continue to boost the economy.

The other thing, the third thing I would say is we need to really look at universally accessible quality pre-K.

And there are a lot of families that simply can't afford that, and they may not qualify for Head Start or Pre-K Counts, where the threshold for income is actually very low.

So there's a lot of families in that gray area where they don't qualify, you know, for the lowest subsidy- for the lowest subsidized opportunities, yet they're not able to afford quality childcare where they might find it, like a private preschool or so forth.

So, A lot of families do get this through childcare, but again, if it's quality childcare.

So, you know, we come back to all the issues of the underpaid childcare providers and the cost of overhead for childcare.

So I would say, you know, those are the three big things that I think we really need to consider because we need to focus the funding on zero
to five 'cause we know that's the foundational time and that's when, you know, th- these these things are so important in those early years.

So that's what we discuss in our book, and that's what we would really come back to.

Erin Bailey: Gosh I could not agree more.

And I live in California, so we do have paid family leave here.

We also have universal pre-K.

So I, you know, acknowledge that I'm speaking from a position of privilege here, but it does work.

I really hope that we can get better policy for birth to age five.

It's so needed

Aimee Ketchum: Yeah, we need all states to have the same opportunities for their youngest Americans.

Erin Bailey: Exactly.

Crystal Loose: on me

Erin Bailey: So for family members, parents, caregivers, educators who are listening and might feel overwhelmed, what are a few practical everyday
things they can take away right now and nurture their child's love of books, storytelling, and reading from infancy all the way through elementary?

Aimee Ketchum: You wanna go first, Crystal?

Got some

Crystal Loose: Go ahead.

You can go.

Go ahead

Aimee Ketchum: Yeah, I would just keep coming back to experiences.

Like, just allowing children as many different experiences as possible.

Getting outside, exploring different places, new cultures, new environments new foods to try, anything that's sensory experiences.

You know, swimming in different oceans, waters, ponds, lakes.

The interacting with different people, going to local things that are very low in cost or free.

There's usually recreation centers in towns that offer events for children.

There's libraries, there's story time.

There's usually a lot of things out there that families could take advantage of, even on weekends, that could be low price or free, that could really offer a lot of new and different opportunities that children might not have at home.

So just thinking about what new experiences can we give to our children where they'll have the opportunity to learn different things, feel different sensations, meet new people, maybe get stimulate their language development as, as often and as possible

Crystal Loose: And if I would give a tip, I would suggest the car is one of the best places for learning because as a mom of four, I was driving constantly to different things.

Because once one child is old enough to start attending sports or dance or music lessons, you have the other kids that are coming along.

So we did a lot of learning activities in the car, and then I also had a special bag that I would bring along everywhere I went, and I would put different things in it, so it was always a surprise as to what was coming out.

So I think That's important.

And if you're in the home a lot, because I had four kids under the age of five, I I hung maps in my house.

so world maps, like big ones, and state maps, and I educated my kids on the world through those maps.

And so that was geography, which often gets overlooked, and people don't think about the world.

And so we would play find the, you know, different states, different countries.

Then we'd talk about what happens in that country.

And so, you know, you're developing that.

And I will say two of my kids won geography bees because

Aimee Ketchum: That's so great.

Globes are great too.

Children love globes.

Yeah.

Erin Bailey: Yeah, we were at home yesterday actually with all the kids, and they discovered a globe.

And my husband gave it a little spin and said, "Point your finger on it, and that's where you get to go." And my daughter had her finger on Reno, Nevada, which isn't too exotic and isn't too far away from us.

Crystal Loose: That's true.

What a great trip.

I love it.

so fun.

Ah

Erin Bailey: But I love that, Crystal, because I think we don't do enough geography, and especially I'll admit it, I'm not good at directions, and it's probably because I use the GPS on my phone.

But I truly think, like, travel and exploration, that's the best form of education.

So if you can start by just exploring a map, that's a great way to do that

Crystal Loose: Yeah.

Yeah.

Pure fun.

Easy

Erin Bailey: always end by asking guests what does reading inspire for you?

Crystal Loose: Oh, so is this us personally

Erin Bailey: Yes

Crystal Loose: it were children?

Okay.

Ah, for me, it opens up a world, really the world as a whole, and it fosters to my imagination.

I'm a dreamer, and so I Love how I can dive into a book and it can take me anywhere.

And I will say I always wanted the same for my students because every student comes with different backgrounds.

And a book can mean everything to a student.

It can change so many things in a child's life and a person's life because you can read a self-help book, you can read a fantasy book, you can read an educational book and you'll learn so much.

So my love of reading is for many reasons, enjoyment and for lifelong learning

Aimee Ketchum: I totally agree.

Imagination.

Also, I would say e- allowing myself insight into somebody else's perspective.

You know, when you read a book that's written in first person, you really get to see, like, their own thought process through something, why they make the decisions that they do.

And I love it in fiction and, or also, like, an autobiography of just someone telling their life story and getting to really feel like they're sitting beside you explaining all the choices they've made in their lives.

And it, it's can be really eye-opening to think about their perspective, their lived experiences versus mine, because I may not ever get the opportunity to talk to somebody that's had the experiences that, you know, someone in the book may have had.

So I would say just that different life perspective

Erin Bailey: That's wonderful.

Thank you both so much.

This has been an amazing conversation.

I hope our listeners got some great advice out of it, and thank you both for joining

Aimee Ketchum: Thanks for having us

Crystal Loose: Our pleasure

Thank you for listening to Reading Inspires by Reading Is Fundamental.

I hope today's conversation sparked new ideas, meaningful connections, and a renewed love of reading.

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe, share it with a fellow literacy champion, and join us next time as we continue exploring what reading inspires