CHILDREN’S LITERATURE AND READER DEVELOPMENT FROM EARLY CHILDHOOD

Abstract

Children’s literature constitutes one of the main symbolic mediation tools in the process of reader development from early childhood. This chapter aims to analyze the relationship between literature, imagination, and language development, highlighting the role of pedagogical mediation in building meaningful reading practices. Based on a theoretical-reflective approach grounded in authors such as Vygotsky, Colomer, Candido, Zilberman, Cosson, and Soares, the text discusses the place of children’s literature in Early Childhood Education, understood as an aesthetic, cultural, and formative experience. The chapter problematizes the reduction of literature to a merely didactic tool and defends its humanizing function, articulated with the concept of literary literacy. Furthermore, mediated reading practices such as storytelling, shared reading, and the use of picture books are analyzed, emphasizing their contribution to oral language development, imagination, and meaning-making. It concludes that the qualified inclusion of literature in school routines promotes not only reader formation but also the child’s integral development, requiring intentional, sensitive, and theoretically grounded teacher action.