If you are employed in a state that uses a registry to track professional development hours, you will be able to provide your registry ID (Stars, MOPID, Registry or other ECE ID#) after you have completed the quiz for the course. If you pass the quiz we will report your course completion to the state registry using the registry ID that you provide.

Explore how children’s literature can enrich learning and support development in this online, self-paced course for early childhood educators. Through interactive content, videos, reflection activities, and practical lesson-planning exercises, participants will discover the importance of reading from infancy, identify the developmental benefits of shared reading, learn strategies to make story time more engaging, create book-based lesson plans, and integrate children’s literature across multiple curriculum areas to enhance learning. Course length – 2.0 hours.

This course helps answer the following questions:

• Why is reading to children important?

• How early should we start reading out loud to children?

• Is it necessary to have a lesson plan?

• How important is diversity in literature?

• How do you take a single book and build a lesson plan?

There are no prerequisites for this course. 

Participants who successfully complete this course will be able to”

• Identify and describe at least three reasons why reading to infants is important for development.

• List at least five benefits of reading to young children.

• Demonstrate or describe at least three strategies to make reading to children more engaging and attention-grabbing.

• Outline a lesson plan using a children’s book, including at least two related activities.

• Identify and describe at least three ways to incorporate literature into different areas of teaching (e.g., math, science, social-emotional learning).