Erin Bailey: Welcome to Reading Inspires by Reading is Fundamental.
I'm your host, Dr. Aaron Bailey.
This podcast celebrates the power of books and the joy of reading.
In each episode, we talk with educators, librarians, families, authors, and literacy champions to explore one big question.
What does Reading inspire for you?
Through stories, research, and real world experiences from classrooms, libraries, and homes, we explore what literacy looks like and why it matters.
Whether you're nurturing young readers, shaping learning spaces, or simply love a good book, we're glad you're here.
Let's get inspired.
Today I'm talking to Dr.
Lauren Loquasto early childhood education expert and Chief Academic Officer for Goddard Systems Incorporated.
Dr. Lauren recently.
LED a webinar for riff.
Every book is a big conversation starter.
And where did this all start?
A few months ago, I received the book Felix and the Picnic from Gardner Publishing.
I'll link that in the show notes below.
And I read it with my 2-year-old during the weekend and was truly inspired by the beautiful way that the book put together.
Pictures and useful conversations.
A child as young as two, my son could look at the illustrations and identify the emotions of the characters.
And for older readers, like my daughter who's five the book could be used in many ways to talk about big feelings, changes in family, and much, much more.
So after reading this book and having this experience at home with my children, I knew I needed to learn more about the book.
So I messaged Gardner Publishing and they put me in touch with Dr.
Lord, and the rest is history.
So.
Welcome, Dr. Lauren.
We're excited to see you and I'm excited to chat with you again.
Lauren Laquasto: Thank you.
Glad to be part.
Erin Bailey: So we're gonna start with your background.
You have over 20 years of experience in early childhood education, and you're currently the Chief Academic Officer at Goddard Systems shaping the curriculum and professional learning across nearly 650 schools.
Can you start with sharing a little bit about your journey, what drew you to early childhood education and how your roles have influenced your perspectives of supporting young children and their families?
Lauren Laquasto: I am happy to.
I actually began my.
Academic journey thinking I'd be a pediatrician.
I was actually a pre-med and undergraduate and I took a role working with children on the autism spectrum, both supporting them and and taking 'em to medical appointments, but also shadowing many of these children in school as a paraprofessional, and it became readily apparent to me.
Nothing against the medical piece that was critical to their, to their care, but it was really the educators that were spending four to eight hours a day with these children that I saw really shaping who they were becoming.
So quick Pivot, pursued my first doctorate in child development.
And while I was doing that at North Carolina State University, I began teaching in the Department of Education.
And I actually helped found their early childhood in elementary ed departments.
And while there I was, I was curious about what was so different about K 12 versus early childhood.
And I heard some different things from different deans including a dean that readily told me.
Do you have any, any students that are struggling in elementary education encouraged them to go into early childhood?
I thought to myself, wow, what a vast misunderstanding to think that that's easier or simpler when actually it's the opposite.
Left a tenure track position to open my own preschool.
And the rest of that is history.
I've been in early childhood for the past 20 plus years.
Really just seeing what I can do to forge a path to help, you know, more, more young learners and families optimize those first five years of life, which are so critical.
Everything else that follows.
And so along the way, pursued a second doctorate in educational leadership and have had the, the pleasure and benefit of being able to lead numerous organizations in early childhood over my career.
Erin Bailey: Thank you.
What a, what A journey.
Two things.
Two connections that I just have to share.
The special education background.
So I, before going into formal education spaces, I started out as a respite care provider.
And if you're unfamiliar with respite carers it's for families that have children with special needs to have someone come into their home, work with their child in their home, or take them out into the community, which is often what I did.
Worked with one family in particular who had a 2-year-old with brain cancer.
And so I did go with him every other week to his chemo treatments at the hospital.
Very quickly learned that I did not want to go into pediatrics.
The hospital was, was not a place for me, which is good to learn early on, but certainly special education is where my heart always learns.
And then what you said about.
Starting early.
I started teaching third, fourth, fifth grade.
So upper elementary, I had a lot of students who were struggling with reading.
So I actually traveled backwards.
I went all the way back to teaching preschool and kindergarten, and then first grade because the foundations are key.
And now what I'm finding a project that I'm working on is it starts even earlier than that.
There are studies that.
Some of the brain mechanics that you know, lead your reading trajectory, start in your utero.
There's actually a Harvard study.
I'll also link that in the show notes so you can check it out yourself.
That there are already these mechanisms in the brain that start in utero and you can use those to see how a child's reading traject trajectory is going to be.
I love brain development.
I know you do too.
So that's a good segue into our next question.
When we think about how children process stress or uncertainty experts di talk about different states of the brain, like the survival state, the emotional state, and the executive state.
You shared about those in the webinar that you did with us.
Can you describe what these states look like for young children and why it's important for parents and educators to understand these states?
Lauren Laquasto: I'd be glad to.
So like you said, there's a lot about brain architecture.
We could probably spend hours and hours and hours talking about that.
But I think the easiest way to, to talk about brain development or brain regions, if you are three states.
So first of all, I talk about the survival state.
This is really the brain stem.
We'll come back to that in a second.
The emotional state, how we feel which is critically important to learning and the executive state, how we make decisions, how we learn and process information, et cetera.
We, in education, like to jump ahead to the executive state and think about how are we impacting learning and what are the outcomes.
But the reality is the brain works the opposite way.
Survival state first, emotional state second, executive state third.
So let me back up a little bit.
When newborns enter this world, that survival state, the brainstem is already very well developed.
You don't have to teach a newborn to breathe for their heart to beat, et cetera.
If you poke the toe of a newborn infant, they don't recommend it.
They'll pull back, they'll cry.
They'll try to protect themselves.
That survival state is really, really strong, and that's always where we go first because it's about protecting ourself.
If you're driving your car and a, and a puppy runs in front of the car, you don't have to stop and think about what are my options?
I could swerve, I could stop the car, I could yell to the dog.
We just jerk the wheel because we go into a primitive state of reacting.
And the, the more we engage with that, the stronger it becomes and come back to that in a second.
Then we have the emotional state.
If I feel safe now, how do I feel?
Am I calm?
Am I content?
Am I sad?
Am I worried?
Am I anxious?
If my emotional state is activated, I'm not really in a place to be able to learn and process information.
Well, we do this as adults.
We don't make good decisions when we're mad.
We don't make good decisions when we're sad.
Why?
Because we're overwhelmed.
Young children are the same way.
The difference is they can't always tell us what they're feeling, and yet we see the impact on learning.
So why does this all matter?
We have to first make sure that the child feels safe, that they're not in survival mode.
We think about young children that are in difficult situations.
Some children come into preschool having been in homes where survival is really their focus.
The next focus has to be on the child's social and emotional development.
How do you feel?
Well, how can I tell in my body that I'm feeling anxious or worried or sad or scared or happy?
And once I can resolve the emotional state, knowing that I'm, I'm comfortable, I'm loved, I'm safe.
Now I'm ready to learn.
It matters for parents as well.
Sometimes we're really eager to teach children things or to teach a lesson when a child is tantruming is a great example, but why we don't behave that way.
They're not in a state to learn that if they're in a high emotional state, they can't take in that information.
If they're in a high emotional state, they don't make great decisions.
Even if they're in a high excitement state.
Think about a young child at a birthday party that just had a bunch of cake.
They might jump off the top stairs.
Why?
Because they're in a different state.
And so it's important that we're always asking ourselves, survival state first.
Unfortunately, unfortunately, our body reacts that way no matter what.
Emotional state and then executive and the executive functioning areas of our brain develop well into our twenties.
So that's an ongoing area of focus, but oftentimes in education, we focus there first and forget that the other two regions of the brain actually are driving, are driving, functioning more So in those moments.
Erin Bailey: Thank you.
And you said well into your twenties.
I would say we never stop, probably.
For many, we never stop building that executive state.
I've also heard what you're describing as a downstairs brain and an upstairs brain, which is a helpful analogy for me.
So if you think about your downstairs brain, that's your survival.
Your you are born with that, and over time you build your upstairs brain.
And this has been helpful for me, even when I am in an emotional state and I wanna be reactive to something, I have to tell myself, you're in the downstairs right now.
Go up into your upstairs brain and handle this problem from your thinking through your upstairs brain versus through your downstairs brain.
Lauren Laquasto: I love that.
And Erin, there's actually, I love that.
And I've read something recently about one of the best ways to move from the downstairs to the upstairs is curiosity.
Curiosity is that pivot point.
Erin Bailey: Hmm.
Lauren Laquasto: Why am I feeling this way?
Why is she acting that way?
Why is.dot, whatever it is to put ourselves into a state of, of being inquisitive in that moment or asking a question shifts the emotion and it makes us more readily able to move into that executive state.
So a nice thing for parents too.
Think about asking questions, ask more why questions.
We know that our three-year-olds are really good at that but helping parents think about that as well.
Erin Bailey: Oh yeah, I, I'm going to use that strategy.
It, it buys you some time too if you're having an emotional reaction.
Starting to ask yourself questions, gives you some time to take a deep breath, calm down, reflect a little bit before you make a, a rash decision.
I appreciate that.
So for young children, as you described, they often express their fear and anxiety differently than we do as as adults.
What are some of the key signs for educators or families that their child is operating in the survival or in the emotional state?
Lauren Laquasto: That's a great question.
So the obvious sign and symptom is similar to adults is emotional emotionality.
So strong emotions in any way.
But with young children, what we frequently see are regressive behaviors.
Separation anxiety.
The child that typically had no difficulty being dropped off at preschool or readily running in for ballet class or soccer practice, that suddenly is expressing a desire to not go or to stay close to the parents.
Clinginess.
Other signs would be signs of worry.
A child asking questions over and over about the same topic.
What's that sound?
How do you know?
What did you hear?
Did you hear that?
Whatever it is that's telling us the child is stuck.
I think of it as a scratched record.
When the child is on the same track over and over and over asking similar questions, it's telling us that something is activated and somehow that curiosity is preventing them from getting past it.
You also might see progressive behaviors related to pottying.
Child that's normally been potty trained relatively well is suddenly having accidents during the day or at night.
Atypically could be a son of the child is, is struggling with fear or anxiety.
Then of course at times we'll see children with sleep disruptions.
The child's having difficulty going to sleep or difficulty staying asleep, be that in the evening time or during nap time.
Any of these are signs and triggers.
The child is in a more survival state mode or more of that emotional state mode.
And we should then as as adults, begin to ask ourself questions around why.
Erin Bailey: Thank you, and I've seen many of these with my own children.
As simple as, we just had a three day weekend and I'm doing daycare drop off and it's, there's a little more clinginess after that three day weekend, which makes sense.
It's a change.
In, in routine.
You know, so when parents do notice these, what can they do?
What actions can they take to help their child move from feeling safe to feeling safe and regulated?
Lauren Laquasto: So one of the best things to do is just reassure our child, reassure our child of their safety.
You are safe in this place.
We know.
You know this teacher, we know our friends.
You like going to ballet, you enjoy going to piano practice and reassuring them of their safety.
The other thing that parents can do is stay close for whatever reason in that moment.
If parents, if the child does feel the need for proximity, if it's possible, proximity is a nice way of reassuring it.
But the other thing, Erin, and you hit the nail on the head, is returning back to routine and schedule.
Young children lack a good sense of time.
So what they can rely upon instead is what comes next.
I pull into the parking lot, I walk inside the preschool.
Mom says goodbye and gives a hug and kiss.
We hang up my jacket, mom leaves.
I now know what's coming next.
I don't know it by the time 'cause I can't yet tell time, but I know what comes next.
Any kind of routine, bedtime routine?
Mealtime routine is important for children 'cause it gives them a sense of safety and security.
Think about ourselves.
If you travel, if you travel somewhere and you're not exactly sure where you are or where you're going, we felt that sense of anxiety as well.
And we're able to tell time and use, use ways to get directions.
With young children, they don't have access to those tools and resources, so they rely upon familiarity.
So re you know, reestablishing any type of familiarity is really key.
The other thing is asking questions of our child.
Asking them, you know, tell me about what, what you're looking forward to, who are you going to play with?
What's coming next?
What do you want to do?
And trying to tap into helping them identify how they are feeling or what might be causing some type of worry or fear for them.
Erin Bailey: Very helpful, simple tips, but we can all.
Apply them into our, our daily lives.
So the next question is around big questions or sometimes they're not even questions from our children.
Sometimes they might make big statements, so sometimes out of nowhere, and I'm sure you'll give some examples, children may ask a big question or make a.
Statement.
How should families and teachers interpret these and respond to them so that a child feels heard and supported, and emotionally understood and, and not be dismissed?
Lauren Laquasto: That's a great question.
And that's actually what I would say my personal platform is.
I'm gonna tell a story first.
If you feel, indulge me for a moment, Erin, and then I'll answer your question.
My, my biological sons are 17 and 15 currently.
I distinctly remember though, or yesterday, a day when they were four and two and I'm working from home in my personal office and the two, my two boys walk into my office, my older son holding Time Magazine, picture of the year in his hand and he slams it on my desk and says, mommy, what happened on September 11?
I distinctly not expecting that question.
In the moment, in that most of my, my emotional reaction to his question, I asked him, what Braden, what do you think happened on September 11?
And he looked down at the floor, began to, his lip began to quiver.
And he said, I don't know, but my teacher said, we don't ask questions like that at school.
So we begin to have a conversation.
I'll talk about that in a moment.
The best to respond to that.
Answering very simply, very honestly about what happened in simple terms.
And as I'm doing so, and he's nodding along, my 2-year-old at the time begins to laugh like a maniac.
Just like he'd heard the funniest thing ever in his life.
And he said, it's okay, mommy.
It's an accident.
And my older son turned to him and said, no, Gavin, things like that don't happen by accident.
Why do I tell you that story?
For one, it's what led to me writing my books.
But more importantly, it's what really led me to think about how often do children ask us questions where we're not comfortable, or make statements where we're embarrassed.
We're not exactly sure what we can say to them because of their age, and we tell them we don't ask questions like that silencing, or we ignore the question and we pretend we didn't hear it, or we say, we'll talk about that later with no intent to talk about that later.
It happens frequently because when young children are in public, they tend to say whatever's on their mind, and oftentimes it's not the most opportune time or it triggers emotion in us as adults.
So what should we do when a young child asks What happened on September 11 or a mommy?
Is that a boy or a girl loudly in public?
Or begins asking other questions, is first of all, acknowledge that we heard them.
I, I, I heard your question, or I heard your statement is really important because when the child is saying that or asking us a question, it's really a, a sign of trust.
I'm wondering about this or I'm concerned about this and I trust that, you know, next, affirm that it's okay.
You can always ask me questions or you can always tell me things.
That's really important for young children to hear because you're telling them it's safe.
It's safe to have a conversation.
Also to what you just said earlier, it buys you some time to start thinking as an adult in terms of what am I going to say before you answer a question?
The most important thing you should do is offer a question back, Brighton.
What do you think happened on September 11th?
Or why are you asking me that question?
Can you tell me where you heard that, or did you see a picture about that?
You want to really tap into what is the child actually asking us?
We don't wanna start answering them with a lot of information, and that's not really what they were asking.
So we wanna really clue into what they're, what they're focused upon.
As the child is talking to us, we should ask them, how does that make you feel?
That's also telling us, am I just curious as a 4-year-old child, or am I scared because I saw something that, that I don't understand, or I heard a word that I don't know.
Then it's really important that we pause, create some space in the conversation.
We, as adults do not like silence or pauses and conversation.
It makes us uncomfortable, but young children need time to think about why am I asking this question?
How do I tell this adult what I saw or what I heard, or how am I feeling and how would I know that?
And then ask more questions back of the child.
If it's a re, if you finally get to the heart of what the child's asking.
As a parent, you answer the question as much as you can.
If you're a teacher, you may or may not answer the question depending upon the topic, if it crosses into religion or politics or cultural beliefs, et cetera.
But instead you can focus upon the emotions.
How does it make you feel?
Can we talk about that feeling?
Because again, at the end of the day, the child's curious executive state.
They're asking because of adverse survival, state or emotional state.
And so if we can tap into those, we're gonna at least resolve the curiosity, buying ourselves some time to then either connect with the family if you're a teacher, in terms of how do you want me to answer this question?
Or would you like to, as a family, accessing resources as we'll?
Talk about, I'm sure.
Or, or sending them, you know, as a parent, giving yourself time to think about how do you want to have a discussion with a child about potentially big topic.
Erin Bailey: I know when I was a teacher.
One thing that I would do is let students know when I didn't know the answer to a question that they had.
That was important practice too, so that they didn't see the teacher as the knowledge bearer.
You know, that we can learn things together.
So sometimes if a student asked a question.
For example, I had a student ask one time, do whales have ears?
I see in this book it says that they have very good hearing, but I don't see ears on the whale.
That's, you know, not a big dramatic question, but it was, I did not know.
So I said something along the lines of, let me look it up, or let me try to find a book and we can read about it together.
Is there ever an opportunity to use that type of a strategy when children ask these types of big questions?
Lauren Laquasto: Absolutely.
I don't know is a very appropriate response.
I don't know.
Let's find out together.
Or I don't know.
It's also appropriate to label our emotions, you know?
Wow.
That's a very big question.
And that's a, that's a hard question for me to answer because I think about many parents have had this experience where you're in public and the child asks, you know, mommy, does she have a baby in her tummy?
Mommy?
Is that a boy or a girl?
Whatever the question might be, mommy, why is her hair like that or her skin like that?
Or, why is she in a wheelchair?
And the answer, I don't know.
But that's an uncomfortable question for me to ask right now because you're talking about somebody who we don't know.
So let's be kind and res Again, you can answer the question by not answering the question and letting the child know why it triggers something in you.
You're not projecting your emotions on them.
They're curious.
It's okay to be curious.
It's okay to ask questions.
We want to affirm that we've heard it.
That's okay to ask the question, but you're exactly right.
It's perfectly fine to say that we don't know.
And even to share emotions back with our children.
Erin Bailey: So all of these are reactive responses, right?
A child active or.
Question and then we are caught in the moment.
We're asking questions, buying time, thinking how we can thoughtfully respond.
Is there a way to be proactive with these so that you can shift to more intentional and preventative support for children?
Lauren Laquasto: That's a great question.
The answer is yes.
So when I first embarked on my personal platform, I wrote a, what I call the big book, which is a reactive resource, 21 topics that children Ask about and how do we respond with two to eight year olds, and what should you expect to hear back in return?
But the opposite of that is a proactive approach.
Let's take changes in the family.
You mentioned Felix and the picnic.
There's a couple things that families can do.
One is read books with children.
Books to me, are about creating connection.
A book can create a backdrop if I'm not exactly sure how to talk to my child about a change that's happening in our family or about an illness or something that's happening with a family member or a friend.
Sometimes reading a book can create a context.
We can talk about the book, the characters in the book, the events of the book.
See if the child makes a connection to something that's happening, or as a, as a parent or trusted adult, maybe as leading with a connection for the child.
The other thing too is we can also ask our children, you know, I, I, I think you walked in the room and heard daddy and I talking about something.
Do you have any questions about what you heard or I saw you in the grocery store line looking at the cover of that magazine.
That was a really interesting picture.
Do you have any questions about what you saw?
Acknowledging that the child may have been exposed to something and asking questions, can open a conversation, the child might say, Nope.
Or I didn't see a picture.
Okay.
Conversation over.
Or the child might say, yes, what was that?
And then we can have a conversation.
But books again are a great way to break down our discomfort as an adult and create a common ground to talk about characters in a story.
And Felix and the picnic.
As you read with your son a children's book that's about a, a character.
The class is getting excited about a family picnic, and this one character doesn't want to get excited about a family picnic.
In fact, he shares one statement, something sad is happening in my family book, never says what that is.
The book concludes the child decides to engage live with a happily ever after, if you will.
But as a parent, it could then be a lead in to talk about why do you think he was sad?
What do you think was sad happening in his family?
Which could then lead to discussions about divorce or separation, death, illness, incarceration, et cetera, or could lead to discussions about he just didn't like picnics, which is also an appropriate answer to the question.
So it doesn't create any, it doesn't introduce any new vocabulary to the child, but it does create a context for to ask questions.
A lot of books are designed in that way.
So if you're thinking as an adult, how do I tell my child about the following or.
I'm pretty sure my child heard about the following.
How do I discuss it?
Seek books as a great way to make a connection because then the conversation can be about the characters and events in the story, which then may or may not lead to real life connection.
Erin Bailey: Thank you.
That's very helpful and I think these are wonderful books.
This is the Big Conversations with Little Children's series that you wrote.
We, we will definitely include that in the show notes for everyone to check out.
But I think you, as you mentioned, they're very open-ended.
So as a proactive response, you know, I received the books in the mail.
We don't have any family changes happening, but I can proactively read the books as just a way to talk about emotions.
When I mentioned reading the Felix book with my son just starting, we didn't even read every word on the page.
We just looked at the.
Pictures and talked about what the characters were doing.
You know, he's playing blocks, she's painting, and then how did they feel?
And at that time, my son could only identify happy and angry.
Those were the two emotion words that he knew.
But it was a great opportunity to introduce new vocabulary.
Like, oh, I think on this page he's sad.
And I see he has.
Tears when I'm crying, it's because I'm sad, or maybe he's disappointed.
So it's a great way to just to introduce children to vocabulary so that they have those in their toolbox.
When things are happening to them, they're able to describe the way that they're, they're feeling.
Lauren Laquasto: Absolutely.
Which is so important, you know, for young children, helping them pair the physiological, what I'm feeling.
What I'm seeing is really important.
I always think of you when my fists are clenched and my face feels hot and I'm breathing heavy, that's anger.
That's what being angry feels like.
Or you said, when I see a frown face and I'm crying and you know, I don't have a lot of energy, that's what sad feels like.
Helping children understand their body connections, what they physically feel, what they're emotionally experiencing, it's really important.
And so the books, conserv books can serve as a viable tool for that Also.
Erin Bailey: Yes.
So.
Let's look at practical takeaways.
You know, we've talked a lot about the books and your journey to writing the books.
If you had to give our listeners just a few practical strategies or mind shift mindset shifts, I should say that you'd recommend, what are those?
Lauren Laquasto: I think first and foremost, see those some sometimes awkward questions or statements as a gift.
If a child asks a parent a tough question I think about things in the news.
Did people die when that happened or is that earthquake going to dot, dot?
Whatever the question might be.
It's a sign of trust.
The child is saying in that moment, I don't know, but I trust you adult.
I trust that, you know, I trust that it's safe to ask you, and I trust that you're gonna guide me in this right now.
If we can see those questions and statements as a gift, we respond very, very differently.
The second thing I would say is really look at the verbal communication of children and the nonverbal.
When we don't have words, we show it non-verbally.
Even we as adults have the words.
We still show it non-verbally.
So when children are showing us behaviors, be curious and ask yourself, what is the child telling me in that moment?
If I interpret those behaviors as words, what is the message I'm trying to give?
And last I would say ask questions of your child.
Being comfortable to also say, I don't know, when you don't have the answers, critically important.
And really taking the time to point out emotions in ourself and in others.
Helping young children navigate a very big and at times confusing world.
Erin Bailey: Thank you one.
When I was a teacher, I was told to always use the acronym.
WTF when a child's behaving in a certain way, and it's not the WTF that you're thinking of, it's what's the function.
So if a child's behaving in a, a particular way, just as you said, you can approach it with curiosity and ask what's the function of the behavior?
And that can be a, a helpful mindset shift for you.
Lauren Laquasto: That's great.
That's great.
Erin Bailey: We always end by asking our guest, what does reading inspire for you?
Lauren Laquasto: Oh, I like that question.
I'd say two things.
Reading inspires connection.
I think connection with people, connection with topics, connection with ideas.
I think about how often I connect with children by talking about books that I know that we've both read or with adults, books that I want them to read and why it's a great way to connect with people.
I think the other thing is reading inspires curiosity.
I think it makes us constantly ask questions of why.
And I hope that we as adults, as parents, as family members, as as educators.
Never lose that spark of curiosity because if we keep asking the question of why we keep learning and that's critically important.
If we want to instill that in children, we have to model that for ourselves.
Erin Bailey: Thank you.
I love.
Reading inspires curiosity.
It has such an open-endedness that can really expand our minds and our worlds.
Well, thank you everyone 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 fellow literacy champions, and join us next time as we continue to explore what reading inspires.