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Each month our newsletter will provide parents with information about early literacy plus quick, fun and easy tips/ activities to use with your children.  Here's a sample of some recent information...

 Teaching Your Child to Print Their Name

A child's name is the most important word he/ she will learn to print.  Learning to print his/ her name is an important literacy skill for any youngster as it helps master letter formation and internalize printing principles.

What is important isn't necessarily good handwriting, it's the automatic letter formation which then frees children to focus on more letter and word acquistion without having to concentrate on the mechanics.

Make printing a positive, motivating, fun and creative process in an individualized and encouraging way that emphasizes the effort.

Credit to Nellie Edge (www.nellieedge.com) a kindergarten resource site for this information.

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 Teaching the Alphabet to Young Children

Parents of young children know the value of learning the alphabet in the early years, recognizing that exposure to letters is an important step toward reading. But many parents have questions about how to take that step.

When you begin thinking about introducing your child to the alphabet, remember that young children learn best when they have opportunities to construct meaning from the information. One way to begin is with things that are familiar to your child, like her name. Once your child gets better at recognizing his name, encourage him to see the similarity between letters in his name and letters in names or other words around him. Point out other words that start with the same letter as her name, like Sharon and Stop.

Create a context in which your child can understand how the alphabet works, and how it relates to reading and writing. Alphabet books introduce the concept that the alphabet is comprised of a group of letters that all have different names and shapes. Your child can see all the alphabet letters together, and can hear that the letters have different names.

Using magazine or catalog pictures, you can also help your child learn the alphabet by helping him connect letters to ideas. Help your child make an alphabet book in which the contents are related to plants and seeds (the A page features apples, the B pages shows beans, etc.) Making connections between concepts and letters in the alphabet will help your child make connections between ideas and words.

One crucial aspect of teaching the alphabet is providing opportunities for your child to express herself through writing. For a young child, writing can be as simple as scribble marks, a drawing, or some approximation of a letter.

Through writing, a child makes connections between print and the spoken word. Writing allows your child to recreate what he experienced in a story or other print. By trying to use print to communicate her thoughts and ideas, your child will see the purpose of writing, and learn how print, letters and reading are related.

Give your child many opportunities to write or trace letters in various mediums. One good way to show your child the shapes of each letter is to point them out in alphabet books. Alphabet puzzles in which each letter is a puzzle piece allow him to feel the curves and lines of the letters. Finger-painting gives a child a different sensory experience in forming letters.

Parents have many ways to help a young child learn the alphabet within a context that makes sense to her. Storybook reading, alphabet books, and playing with letters all help expose your child to print, and talking about the meanings of words can create a context for presenting the alphabet. By taking a playful approach grounded in your child's interest, you can help him learn about the alphabet and take an important step toward reading and writing.

Excerpted from "Teaching the Alphabet to Young Children," by Barbara Wasik - an article in the NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) journal, Young Children.

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Now I know my ABC's....

So what comes next?  Using something as non-threatening and familiar as their names is a great way to get children to make that move from letters in a song to words on paper.  Understanding concepts like letters and words is a big leap for some pre-schoolers and kindergarteners.  By utilizing their names parents and educators can introduce a variety of literacy concepts to children in fun, imaginative and interactive ways.

Here are some ideas that I've tried with my kids...

- play "I Spy" looking for letters from their name on signs, books, products, toys while in the car or waiting at the doctor's office, while shopping, in line at the grocery store, etc.

-  Sing songs with the child's name.  I.e. Replacing BINGO with KATIE, longer or shorter names require a bit of creativity in your singing cadence!  Any name in a nursery rhyme can be replaced with your child's (Matthew be nimble, Matthew be quick, Matthew jump over the candle stick)

- Incorporate your child's name into silly songs or fun poems

 I have a friend
Whose name is _____
And we have fun together.
We laugh and play
And sing all day
In any kind of weather.

(color) is my hair.
(color) are my eyes.
I'm _____ years old
and just the right size.
My name is _____ and as you can see
I'm very happy to be me.