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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Article Published by Lee-Ann O'Neill - Mompreneur, The Little Stamp Co.
Fun, Easy and Inexpensive Ways to Promote Literacy with your Preschooler
Many preschoolers are not particularly fond of sitting down at the kitchen table to ‘work’ on their ABC’s, or complete activities in the myriad of books available to help your child get that headstart in learning. Children learn through play, games, and modeling. There are lots of ways to incorporate early literacy into your daily lives, and to make it fun, easy, and inexpensive too.
1. Driving Around in my Automobile... Ever feel like you spend alot of time in the car with your little ones? Driving older ones here and there, running errands, taking them to classes, you know the drill. Rather than popping on that high tech DVD player to satisfy the boredom of the five point harness, here are some fun and easy games to play in the car with our little learners.
a. Pick a letter and see if they can count how many "A's" (for example) they can see on signs as you drive.
b. Have them try to find the letters of their name, or any other word, on license plates. Remember that one as a kid?
c. Guess the password - give rhyming clues so your child can guess the right word. "It rhymes with can, and starts with the 'fff' sound.
d. Recite favourite nursery rhymes together, have them do the actions (keep your hands on the wheel Mom!).
e. Make silly changes to rhymes they already know - Row, Row, Row your car, gently down the street.....
These ideas can also be used on neighbourhood walks, on the bus, in the mall or at the doctor's office.
2. Scrub A Dub Dub... Bath time is a great time to introduce literacy activities. You have a captivated, somewhat contained audience and literacy can easily become part of the bath time routine.
a. Have kids play imagination games and role play with bath toys. Is that sponge really a fish? A mermaid? A jellyfish?
b. Draw with bath crayons. Let kids write on tile and it washes right off. Or, write with your fingers on steamy windows.
c. Take the opportunity to learn the names of body parts. Can they wash in alphabetical order? Wash that ARM before your BACK or CHIN.
3. Penny Pinching... Using everyday items in your house, and found objects you can easily create some quick, fun and inexpensive activities for your kids.
a. Let your child play with letters and pictures cut out from newspapers, magazines, and flyers ... and you're helping the environment by using some of those flyers that would just be landing in the recycle bin anyways.
b. Encourage your children to use real life literacy items in their play. For example, grocery receipts, empty boxes, and coupons for playing store or a small notepad for taking 'orders' at a pretend restaurant or junk mail and old greeting cards as mail for the postman.
c. Make your own games such as match up by cutting out squares and writing a letter or word on one card (depending on child's age) with a corresponding picture on the other. Preschoolers can even help draw the pictures.
4. Tactile learning... What child doesn't like to get their hands into things... well, okay there are some kids who hold their hands in the air and say 'Ick' when they get messy. But many young ones are tactile learners and love to play and discover various textures and mediums.
Use sand in a box to write letters. Form letters using playdoh, plasticine, or cookie dough! Scraps of yarn and string can be manipulated to make letters. Add glitter or sprinkles to a shallow dish and ‘draw’ letters, shapes, or numbers with your fingers. Use plastic shapes such as Lego or Megablocks to form letters.
Many of these strategies make for fun, interactive and inexpensive learning experiences while helping promote early literacy in the lives of your little ones.
Lee-Ann O'Neill is a mompreneur who runs The Little Stamp Co. which creates personalized Learn to Print stamps for little learners. She enjoys promoting early literacy ideas for parents and running a business with a fun and educational focus.
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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.
