Essential Literacy Strategies

In early literacy there are 8 key strategies for strong early literacy skills. These key strategies will help young children to have a better literacy experience.  

1. ABC Activities

This activity center will be very involved in helping the children to gain knowledge and experiences with the alphabet. An activity that you might see in this center would be having children practice writing letters in shaving cream on a table with their finger.   

2. Emergent Reading 

This will be demonstrated in the classroom by displaying environmental print and providing the children with story books. These resources should be displayed throughout the classroom.   

3. Emergent Writing 

This will encourage the children to practice their writing skills. In an early childhood classroom there will be children who are at different stages of writing such as scribbles, letters, and words. As a teacher it is important to encourage children to write no matter what stage they are at.  

4. Integrated, Content-Focused Activities   

A teacher can display this in their classroom by bringing things that the children find interesting into the classroom. This is important because creating activities that the children find interesting will encourage them to learn 

5. Phonological Awareness  

Phonological awareness in the classroom will encourage children to explore sounds of words. Children can do this by sounding out words and being able to recognize words from books.

 

6. Rich Teacher Talk 

Using language in the classroom and encourage conversations with children and teachers can help to build classroom vocabulary. This can be done in group activities or one-on-one conversations.

7. Shared Book Experience  

 This strategy is when the whole class is involved in a story book. Teachers can promote other literacy strategies through shared book experiences by reading a story then setting up classroom activities to further the children's learning.

8. Storybook Reading 

 This is the most common literacy strategy. Reading aloud to children will allow them to become familiar with storybooks and print. Reading aloud to children will build their reading and language skills. This is a good time to introduce new things to a classroom.

#Kinderchat: To much pavement?

I went to a past #Kinderchat from November 11, 2013 about outdoor time. When I was reading the posts from the chat I was finding that the main topics that were being talked about were in regards to learning, nature, and the outdoors. The chat began on the topic of bringing nature inside the classroom and raising animals in the room then setting them free. I thought that this was a good idea and valuable to the learning process of children. Bringing nature inside the class allows the children to observe the life of the animal at all times of the day not just when the class goes outside. 

The next topic that was talked about was on the outdoor space that the children explored and played in. Many people were talking about the grass and paved areas as well as playground equipment and what that was made of. Several people expressed their concerns about how much of the space that the children were playing in was getting paved over. When the grass is paved over the children can not play and explore the grass and learn about what they find in the grass. Others were concerned that the paved areas were not a natural place for the children to play. Some of the people in the chat were talking about the playground equipment and what it was made of. I have never really thought about the materials of playground equipment but many were concerned about plastic vs. wood. I would agree with those who thought that wood was a better option because I think that it gives the outdoor experience more of a natural feel verse the unnatural plastic. 
Overall I found the #Kinderchat experience to be very interesting. Some of the topics that were brought up I never would have thought of as being a concern to educators. 

Literature Circles in the Classroom

Literacy circles are something that is very common in most classrooms. To an outsider a literacy circle might look very similar to story time. In literacy circles there is more of an opportunity for children to interact in become a part of the story. In younger aged classrooms it is very important to pick a book that has content that will interest the children because if the story is not interesting then no matter what you do it will be a struggle to get them to listen or participate. When children make predictions and act out the story where everyone in the class has a part the story becomes more than just a story but the story becomes alive and real to the child. When reading a story every child would have a part of the story as a character in the book or helping to create the story set until every child has had a turn to participate in the story. This is important to a literacy circle because it engages the children in becoming a part of the story more than a story time would. Another way to make the story become more alive and fun for the classroom is by using extra large books. This will help the children to see any details in greater.

Home vs School

For many children and families bridging the gap between home and school can sometimes be difficult. Every family has a different culture at home which then when children come to school the teacher then has a class of children all coming from different home cultures. There are many different ways to help bridge any gaps between home and school. Bridging these gaps is important because it will create a more welcoming environment for learning at home, for families to feel welcome in the classroom and for children and families to value their child's education more. Something that can help bridge this gap between home and school is by bringing different cultures into the classroom. This will allow the children to feel more comfortable in the class and it also gives the child and their family an opportunity to come in and teach the rest of the class and the teacher about what makes their family unique. Another way to do this is to create an "About Me" board in the class and allow every child a week to teach about their family. 

 

Reading Aloud to Children

One of the hardest things to do as a teacher is reading a story aloud to a large group of children. They wiggle, talk and just have the hardest time sitting through a story; especially when everyone has something to share about what is happening in the story. When reading to young children it is important to keep them engaged through the story but keeping a large group engaged takes more than just asking the occasional question about what is happening in the story. Allowing children to to interact, move, help tell the story, and using props to aid in the story telling process can help to create a better flowing story time. Using props such as puppets can help to introduce the story or can help to act out different characters in the story. In between stories or if there is a good time in the story to talk a small break would be a good time to do a short activity where the children would be able to move around. Allowing children to ask questions or participate in parts of the story such as saying a repetitive section can allow the children to feel more active in the story and this can result in their attention being kept for longer by the story.

Aha!

Literacy is very important to a child's education. When every child comes from a different family background it can be difficult to connect home and school. For teachers to be able to connect home and school it is important to understand that every family is literate but in different ways. Depending on the needs of the family or language that is used in the home will create different literacy fluency's in school among children. When teachers understand where the child's literacy influence comes from the teacher can create a connection between home and school so the child's learning can continue outside of the school.