Fostering Literacy

By Amy Blasberg, Assistant Teacher

The third seminar in this spring’s parent seminar series, “Fostering Literacy in Young Children,” delved into the fundamentals of literacy, how Bing teachers promote literacy and strategies for “taking it home.” The speakers were East PM head teachers Sarah Wright and Adrienne Lomangino, East AM head teacher Beverley Hartman, East AM teacher Sue Gore, and Center AM teachers Karen Robinette and Meghan Olsen.

The Fundamentals

 

Adrienne Lomangino

Adrienne Lomangino

Acquiring literacy is often thought of as simply learning to read and write, but the very beginnings of literacy emerge as children learn to speak, listen, view and think. For example, literacy calls on thinking skills when a reader makes inferences about a section of text’s meaning and ascertains new words’ meanings from the context. Although oral and written language differ in that oral language is innate and written language is not, they are deeply intertwined and develop concurrently

Many elements of oral language come into play when children learn to read and write. The first of these elements is a wide vocabulary. The more words a child has in his mental dictionary, the more easily he will recognize these words when he encounters them in a book. Therefore, it is important that parents take time to talk and read to children.

The second element is phonological awareness. Phonological awareness doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with letters, but involves children’s ability to play with sounds. Singing songs is a prime example of playing with sounds. Songs often have rhyming words, and rhyming is another measure of phonological awareness. Segmenting words into syllables also comes into the picture at this point. Clapping out the number of syllables in a word or in children’s names is one way to enhance this skill.

Sarah Wright

Sarah Wright

A more specific component of phonological awareness is phonemic awareness. This is the ability to recognize that a spoken word is composed of a sequence of individual sounds. Just like phonological awareness, this process doesn’t necessarily have to do with letters. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound.

It is often smaller than one syllable, but can be larger than one letter. For example, the word “splash” has one syllable, six letters but five phonemes: s/p/l/a/sh.

The fourth element is print awareness. Children begin to understand that print is all around us and is used in a variety of ways. From street signs to post-it notes to nametags, children see that words are used to convey information, which is a very powerful thing. Once they understand that print is everywhere, they can also begin to see that it follows basic rules and conventions.

As all of these levels of awareness come together in children’s minds, early letter and word recognition starts to take place. Recognizing the symbols of letters and labeling those symbols with letter names occurs at this point. Additionally, the critical step of being able to link letter names to letter sounds becomes a common practice.

An often overlooked aspect of early literacy is comprehension. Decoding the words serves little purpose if a child cannot piece together their meaning. Parents, caregivers and teachers should therefore attend to whether children are making sense of what is being said or read to them. Do they make comments or ask questions to show their understanding? Do they relate what is being said or read to experiences in their own lives?

Beyond children’s awareness of print and language, developing their motivation is also an important consideration. Children need not only to be able to read, but to want to read—and to want to challenge themselves as readers, writers and communicators. Children will read more if they associate enjoyment with reading experiences. Thus, it is important for reading to be fun, not a chore.

Literacy at Bing

Beverley Hartman

Beverley Hartman

Bing’s teachers consider literacy to be of prime importance. Fortunately, play serves as a platform for language and literacy, making Bing’s play-based environment an ideal climate for supporting emerging literacy. When teaching letters and conventional written language, it is important to follow the lead of the child. In Bing’s child-centered environment, following the child’s lead is the norm.

When the joy of reading is transferred to a child, the stage is set for developing literacy. Of all the experiences children can have, storybook reading seems to be the most powerful in helping to learn language and gain knowledge about the world. Reading has an important place in the classrooms at Bing. Each room has a cozy spot for reading with parents, teachers, friends and alone. It is important that children see themselves as readers, whether they are reading the exact printed words or not.

Sue Gore

Sue Gore

One strong example of literacy at Bing came about through East AM’s grocery store project. The idea for the grocery store arose when a teacher chose the bookBunny Cakes by Rosemary Wells for story time. In the story, one character makes repeated trips to the grocery store for cake ingredients. Children took this concept and ran with it. Almost spontaneously, a bakery moved out to the play yard and quickly morphed into a grocery store. Children learned to negotiate with each other over how much of a product they wanted or how much it might cost. Signs sprouted up with pictures of different kinds of food. Materials for reading and writing (such as clipboards) were brought outside to encourage literacy in whatever form it happened to come.

Recalling their own grocery store experiences, the children proved to be enthusiastic shoppers. They also proved their ability to recall specific events in a specific order, which lays the groundwork for recalling the narrative of a story. Keyboards were brought out to represent cash registers and younger children randomly pushed buttons while older ones looked for certain letters and numbers. Motor development also was apparent as children grappled with the task of opening grocery bags. This skill worked on fine motor muscles so that the same hands opening grocery bags would later have the strength to hold a pencil. The project was then continued inside the classroom as children created their own food items and wrote their own shopping lists. But above all, it is important to remember that play was the medium through which all of these skills were introduced and practiced.

Karen Blobinette

Karen Robinette

Taking It Home

For a child, the single most important factor in developing literacy is being read to by a parent or other person. In addition to reading, an attentive person can spend time talking, listening and simply playing on the floor with the child. This “floor time” allows the child to feel important, understood and noticed. It is also a great time to learn about a child’s specific interests. Following those interests is necessary to create an environment in which children want to read. Checking books out of the library and allowing children to have their own personal collection of books is another way to promote literacy. Parents can model literacy by showing children that they enjoy reading and writing. Inviting children into the reading and writing process is another great wayto get create awareness of literacy. From shopping lists to e-mails to homemade greeting cards, children can be involved in the writing process on many levels.

Meghan Olsen

Meghan Olsen

Although it may seem challenging to incorporate these activities, with a little planning they can happen in the car, at dinnertime and while running errands. Children love being involved in “grown-up” activities, and finding a role for them is a wonderful way to encourage their participation in early literacy.