Books and Toddlers in Child Care: Under What Conditions are Children Most Engaged?

Background

Although shared book reading is seen as an effective way to support children’s early literacy and language development, less is known about the factors associated with toddlers’ engagement with books.

Objective

The goal of the current study was to examine younger and older toddlers’ engagement with books during one-on-one reading with a teacher in an interactive versus non-interactive manner and during independent exploration.

Method

Using single-case design, the study examined how engagement among toddlers (N = 6) in a childcare classroom varied under different book reading/exploration conditions.

Results

Results indicated that overall engagement was greater when teachers read interactively compared to when children explored books on their own, with this effect differing for younger versus older toddlers.

Conclusions

Understanding how teachers reading to younger and older toddlers is associated with children’s engagement with books compared to children’s engagement when exploring books on their own can inform early care and education reading practices with toddlers. Implications for book reading with toddlers in group childcare are discussed.

     

You are what you eat—What you eat is what you are

Eating disorders among adolescents in the United States constitute the most frequent nutritional problems in this age group, and their prevalence appears to be increasing. A causal relationship of television viewing to obesity is strongly suggested for children and adolescents. Perhaps as much as 25% of the recent increase in obesity among adolescents may be attributable to increases in television viewing. Associations between television viewing and anorexia and bulimia are less explicit than they are for obesity. Nonetheless, because children and adolescents spend more time viewing television than they do in any activity other than sleep, the world shown on television may acquire a greater reality than the world that is experienced. The low frequency of obesity among televised characters, combined with the frequent food-related references that are contained in both commercials and programming, may promote unrealistic conclusions regarding eating and body weight. Television reflects a cultural contradiction by promoting food consumption and leanness. In this context, bulimia may be viewed as an adaptive response, because only bulimics can eat everything they wish and remain thin.     

Diet and cancer: where are we and where are we going?

Many studies have shown that overall dietary patterns, dietary components consumed, or mode of food preparation are all possibly relevant in either reducing or increasing the risk of cancer in animals or man. Yet, dietary intervention studies, stemming from laboratory and epidemiological observational studies have often failed to demonstrate the anticipated protection against cancer. One possible explanation for the discrepancy between the results of various observational and experimental chemo-prevention studies is the lack of control for biological diversity of the participants of these studies. It is suggested that future epidemiological studies provide evidence stratified by status of major metabolic polymorphisms pertinent to the study subject, and that future intervention studies take these differences into account in the design and analysis phases.     

Who are parish nurses?

This article introduces parish nursing by describing seven areas, including: the varied professional background of nurses, their educational background, the nurse as a unique person, resources to which interdisciplinary professionals and parish nurses can turn, limitations of the practice, a brief history of the profession, and types of practices.