Debbie KingWillamette Education Service District

Today’s Agenda1. What is early literacy?2. What early literacy is not3. Language and literacy4. Stages of early literacy and language5. Developmental activities for literacy6. Practice!

What is early literacy

Your child’s early experiences with books and language lay the foundation for success in learning to read.

Children prepare to read long before they enter school.

Early literacy is a baby who chews on a book.Early literacy is a toddler who wants his favorite

book over and over.Early literacy is a preschooler who “reads” the

story to you from memory.

•There are many pathways to literacy. Early experiences can be initiated by the child or by other people.

•It can be playful or work like.

•May take place in the home, the neighborhood, preschool, or daycare center.

•Early literacy experiences can include pretending to write and read stories, writing a thank-you note to grandma, or listening to a story.

The most important thing that YOU can do to foster early literacy is to provide an atmosphere that is:

•Fun•Verbal

•Stimulating

YouAre TheKey

To a child’s success

In learning to read

What Early Literacy is NotIt is not “formal teaching of reading” to

younger children.

Formal instruction that pushes infants and toddlers to read is not developmentally appropriate.

How early literacy relates to language development

Learning to read is built on a foundation of language skills that children start learning at birth.

Understanding what is saidImitating what they hearUsing more and more words as they developUsing their language to express their thoughtsUsing their language to get their needs and wants

metConnecting letter sounds to words

StatisticsAccording to a 2006 kindergarten teacher

survey by ODE, 19.4 % of children enrolled in Multnomah County were “not ready to succeed” because they lacked the necessary language and pre-reading skills. Nationally, this rises to 35%.

There is a 90% probability that a child who is a poor reader in the first grade will be a poor reader in the 4th grade.

Statistics cont’dThe nation’s report card of 2003, stated that

40% of 4th graders and 31% of 8th graders are below the basic skills level.

Children develop much of their capacity for learning in the first 3 years of life, when their brain grows to 90% of the eventual adult weight.

The prevalence and stability of preschool problems of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity suggests a number of links to a lack early literacy .

Statistics cont’d

Almost 3 million school age children have some form of learning disability and receive special education in school.

Children with developmental speech/language impairments are at a higher rate for reading disability that typical peers with no history of speech/language impairment.

Stages of Development

Literacy Skills

5 Components of Emergent Language

1.Symbolic Development / Print MotivationA child’s interest in and enjoyment of books.

2.Spoken Language / VocabularyUsing language to communicate ideas, feelings,

and to ask questions in order to solve problems.

Learning the names of things.

Components cont’d

3. Listening and Understanding Language / Narrative Skills

Understanding and telling stories, describing things that

are important is the child’s life. This helps them to

understand what they are learning to read.

4. Knowledge and Awareness of Print and Books / Written Language

The child is learning that writing has basic rules. Learning the alphabet letters names.

Components cont’d

5.Sounds of Language / Phonological Awareness

The ability to hear and manipulate the smaller soundsin words. This includes rhymes, chunking sounds of words, putting two chunks of sounds together to make a word.

What Children Like in BooksBirth-2

Board books with photos of babies

Books with clear familiar items in the baby’s world

Books with texture

Books with animals sounds

2 – 3 Years of Age

•Small books that fill into small hands and has thick pages.

•Books with simple rhymes.

•Books with familiar routines such as bathing and bedtime.

•Lift the flab books.

•Books that they can learn “by heart” because they have few words.

4 – 5 Years of Age

•Books that tell stories.

•Books that make them laugh.

•Books they can “memorize”.

•Books about familiar real world: trucks, going to school, dinosaurs.

•Counting books, alphabet books, vocabulary books.