Emergent Literacy
Phonemic Awareness & Phonics
The articles that we read for this week made some great points and suggestions regarding literacy in children and how to go about getting them excited about reading and writing. The first article that I read titled, Learning to Read and Write: Developmentally Appropriate Practices made a great point about today's definition of proficiency literacy. It stated that before, much communication was over the phone or in person. Now, everything seems to be electronic thus, communication through writing is an essential skill for children to develop.
The second article, Letting Go of the Letter of the Week made yet another great point. Children enter school with all different levels of exposure to literacy. To give kids the confidence to start reading in class, the article suggested taking pictures of each child and placing that picture below the letter that matches the first letter in their name. This makes these letters more familiar to the children and they can refer back to their friend's names and the sounds the letters in their names make as references to sounding out other words. Michael starts with "M" and so does monkey. Also, sometimes children are hesitant to write because they feel that what they produce is "chicken scratch"; they believe don't know how to write because their handwriting does not resemble their parents or other adults around them. One idea to build their confidence is showing examples of different handwriting, some messy and some neat. Explain that everyone has their own way of writing and communicating.
The last article that I read, Supporting Phonemic Awareness, emphasized bringing fun and play into the classroom. Story telling, words games, rhymes, and riddles are all ways of incorporating phonological awareness into the classroom in stimulating. Games that were suggested include Down by the Bay and Going on a Word Hunt. Classic nursery rhymes are also great tools to use with children in Kindergarten and 1st grade.
nursery rhymes to promote phonological awareness
CHECK OUT THE LINK:
nursery rhymes to promote phonological awareness
all images were taken off Google
I could not agree with you more that even though communication is mainly done through technology (as I am doing right now with my reply to your blog), it is essential that children understand how to physically read and write in other ways besides through technology. I also thought that allowing children to build their language on previous knowledge is a great way to go about teaching literacy skills. I often feel as well that adults try to focus on children writing a certain way, and that if the way they write is discouraged then they may feel like they can not learn how to read and write. I had never really thought about that, so I feel that the article did a great job about bringing that point out. The link gives so many options for building oral language. I really enjoyed looking through that site!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing that nursery rhyme link!
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