Language and Literacy

1. Language and Literacy Debbie King Willamette Education Service District

2. Today’s Agenda • What is early literacy? • What early literacy is not • Language and literacy • Stages of early literacy and language • Developmental activities for literacy • Practice!

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. The most important thing that YOU can do to foster early literacy is to provide an atmosphere that is: • Fun • Verbal • Stimulating

6. You Are The Key To a child’s success In learning to read

7. What Early Literacy is Not • It is not “formal teaching of reading” to younger children. • Formal instruction that pushes infants and toddlers to read is not developmentally appropriate.

8. 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 said • Imitating what they hear • Using more and more words as they develop • Using their language to express their thoughts • Using their language to get their needs and wants met • Connecting letter sounds to words

9. Statistics • According 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.

10. Statistics cont’d • The 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 .

11. 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.

12. Stages of Development Literacy Skills

13. 5 Components of Emergent Language • Symbolic Development / Print Motivation A child’s interest in and enjoyment of books. • Spoken Language / Vocabulary Using language to communicate ideas, feelings, and to ask questions in order to solve problems. Learning the names of things.

14. Components cont’d • 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. • Knowledge and Awareness of Print and Books / Written Language The child is learning that writing has basic rules. Learning the alphabet letters names.

15. Components cont’d • Sounds of Language / Phonological Awareness The ability to hear and manipulate the smaller sounds in words. This includes rhymes, chunking sounds of words, putting two chunks of sounds together to make a word.

16. What Children Like in Books Birth-2 • Board books with photos of babies • Books with clear familiar items in the baby’s world • Books with texture • Books with animals sounds

17. 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.

18. 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.