Early Literacy

Champaign-Urbana had a special visitor last week, Dr. Dipesh Navsaria, who spoke about the importance of early literacy in his talk, "Books Build Better Brains: Wanderings at the Intersection of Children's Literature and Early Brain Development" for the Gryphon Lecture series at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science.  Dr. Navsaria is a rare doctor who studied both pediatrics and children's literature at The University of Illinois while obtaining his M.D. and later, M.S. in Library and Information Science.   He shared a fabulous hand-out on the Developmental Milestones of Early Literacy from Reach Out and Read, documenting not only the cognitive milestones in early literacy, but the motor milestones in early literacy as well.  Most importantly, it gives practical suggestions for parents and caregivers to support early literacy.  -Elaine B.