EARLY LITERACY

Children take their first critical steps toward learning to read and write very early in life. Long before they can exhibit reading and writing production skills they begin to acquire some basic understandings of the concepts about literacy and its functions. From their initial experiences and interactions with adults, children begin to read words, processing letter-sound relations and acquiring substantial knowledge of the alphabetic system. Even in the first few months of life, children begin to experiment with language. Young babies make sounds that imitate the tones and rhythms of adult talk: they “read” gestures and facial expressions, and they begin to associate sound sequences frequently heard. They delight in listening to familiar rhymes, peekaboo and pat-a-cake.
Preschoolers are gaining facility with symbol systems. As they develop an understanding of the alphabetic principle, children begin to process letters, translate them into sounds, and connect this information with a known meaning. Studies show that young children learn through a variety of ways and that reading and writing acquisition is better conceptualized as a developmental continuum than as an all-or-nothing phenomenon. No one teaching method or approach is likely to be the most effective for all children. We try to bring into our curriculum a variety of ways for children to experience printed material (letter naming and beginning spelling) , singing (sound recognition), talking in small groups (vocabulary development) listening to sounds,(phonemic development) rhyming (auditory perception) , drawing and writing through dictation and in their own first attempts to write on their own (small motor skills needed for future writing and learning about story telling).
We bring these skills to our programs offering formal and informal activities that do not look like formal traditional teaching of reading and writing. Some of the things you will see in our curriculum and that you can do at home to enhance this experience are as follows:
1. Story time in a warm relaxed way. We choose some books to read several times for a week or two so that children can tell the story on their own.
2. Dramatic play include note writing, sign making, books, etc
3. Children can dictate or write their own notes to parents or each other.
4. W e have a “take home” Moose and Rabbit for children to take home and to write in the journal that goes with them.
5. We use journal writing and picture drawing at often.
6. We change the books in our book corner often and always have interesting developmentally appropriate material there.
7. We use labels around the room as well as the alphabet to look at for reference so that it is available when the child is developmentally ready to begin to write.
8. We use books, notes, and signs for outside play, dramatic experiences, cooking projects etc.
9. At circle time: we interact with words, rhyming, opposites, positional words etc. and do group dictating stories or remembering experiences and learning to listen to each other’s ideas.

Research tells us that the most important factor in helping children learn to be proficient at reading and writing is to have relationships with caring adults who engage in many one-on-one, face-to-face interactions to support their oral language development and lay the foundation for later literacy learning. The second most important factor is that children are read to daily from the time they are babies and continuing to the later years even after they know how to read. The next is that children are exposed to an environment where reading and writing are modeled in their daily life.
You will notice on our nursery class calendars activities that encourage early literacy skill development. Look for the “EL” (early literacay) abreviation on the calendar for at least one activity each day. Though as you can see by the list many, many activities are going on to enhance this development each day.