I love reading with
children. It is my favorite time;
whether, I am in the classroom, with toddlers in the church nursery, or at home
with my own children. My favorite part
of reading a book is when we revisit it again and again. A little one studying
a picture or personally relating to the text is a wonderful teachable moment. I believe encouraging children to be actively
involved in answering questions and making predictions are essential in literacy
development. I believe this is essential
to simply enjoying a book too.
Interaction with the text makes the book come alive in the
classroom. Pointing to pictures,
gesturing, varying the pace of my voice are all ways I attempt to make the book
come alive and encourage my children to participate. Literacy in the early childhood
classroom can be magical.
I wanted one of my first blogs to begin by discussing ways to
create a literacy rich environment in an early childhood classroom. As a teacher, I was constantly looking for
ways to create a classroom environment that set the stage for literacy
learning. I have attached a link to a
great article from Early Childhood News.
It provides a comprehensive list of ideas for a literacy rich classroom. These are only suggestions, but I found the author to have a
great grasp on literacy learning. Creating
a Literacy Rich Environment
I also
want to provide an author’s personal story during my posts. I enjoy hearing authors describe their early
literacy experiences and inevitably; it begins with an encouraging teacher or
parent at a very early age. This further
supports my belief that a love of learning begins in the early childhood
classroom. I couldn't resist this story by Tomie dePaola about his literacy experiences at age 4.
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff. This is a great book to have in the math
center. After reading the book whole group, the children can further explore
the book in the math center. I always
provide story problems with fun manipulative that support the learning
process. I have included a few of my
favorite story problems below:
The mouse and the boy have a box of 24 crayons. The mouse lost 10
of the crayons. How many crayons are left? (I provide a box of crayons for the
problem about crayons.)
The boy has 4 cookies and the mouse has 6 cookies. How
many cookies do they have altogether? (Paper cookies for the cookie problem)
The mouse has 3 cookies, 5 straws for his milk, and 1 glass of
milk. How many things does he have? (An empty cups with straws for the
milk problem)
This is a fun way to combine literacy and math. I like to extend stories with a technology “link”
in some way. Whether sharing whole group or providing it in a center, students can
continue to enjoy a literacy experience.
For this particular book, there is a great site to enjoy other books by
this author and participate in online games related to her stories. I hope you
have time to check out this technology & literacy link Technology Link to
Literacy
I hope you had a great time visiting my blog today. Teaching reading is my passion & I hope it shows!
Beth...I love your blog post this week. Your love for literacy is evident. The ideas you provided for a literacy rich environment are awesome as well as links, lists and video you included! We are so fortunate as educators today to have access to so many resources when teaching our students. I love the Laura Numeroff books myself and all of the great activities you can find by searching the internet to complement these books! Thanks for sharing...
ReplyDeleteTeaching students’ literacy across all academic disciplines is so important. I think it is great how you take your reading lessons and make them cross-curricular. By doing this students are already prepared and acclimated to literacy being a part of their lesson when they reach the secondary level of education. I also found the article you linked to be very insightful in creating a classroom that has a literacy-rich environment. The article was really an easy read and gave thorough directions on how to develop a classroom setting conducive to reading. I liked how it said to create writing centers in the classroom to develop fine motor skills and fill up your walls with print rich material such as teacher example writings. However, my favorite idea from the article was the classroom libraries. I am a big believer in Free Voluntary Reading (FVR) because I think it encourages students to build reading skills while having a choice in what they are reading. By a teacher building a classroom library students have a variety of reading materials to choose from when given FVR time. I believe students learn more when they feel empowered and choice gives students power over their learning. Therefore by having a classroom library, students have choice over their reading and are more apt to partake in the learning process than if they are forced to read something they are not interested in. I really liked your article that you included in your blog. I think it is a great blueprint on how a classroom setup should be. I have enjoyed your blogs and look forward to the ones to come. I hope you have a great spring break.
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