L’utile e il dilettevole della Letteratura per l'infanzia 0-3 anni. Riflessioni intorno alla literary literacy e alla reader-response theory

This paper examines the epistemological issue of defining children’s literature for ages 0-3 years and investigates the dynamics and the methods that lead children to develop, in a gradual but increasingly autonomous manner, the myriad methods of reading picturebooks and building an initial rapport. These methods help broaden the shared experience of reading a picturebook with an adult and turn this educational practice into a key stage in the development of a core skill: literary literacy. The paper also introduces a reflection on the validity of applying reader-response theory to literature for toddlers within a theoretical and methodological framework revised on the basis of international observational studies in this field. The aim is to present potential paths for studying and analysing both how to promote reading at school and how to conduct academic research.