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Literacy Links for Parents from the Child Learning Center
By Price doctoral fellow Nikki Davis and CLC teacher Amy
Thrasher
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#1 We have been singing a new song in the preschool about
names. The words to the song go, "Name game. What's
your name? My name is..." Last week, the students took
the game a
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step further and made up their own silly names to sing.
The children then went around the group a second time, but
the song had changed to, "What is your silly name?"
Creating silly names is a great emergent literacy activity
that the whole family can be involved in!
There are lots of different ways to play with the syllables
and sounds in your name. For example, you and your child
could make up a second name that starts with the same sound
(e.g., Amazing Amy) or rhymes (e.g., Penny Jenny). Sometimes
it is hard to think of a word that rhymes with a name. But
don't worry if the new word isn't a real word. It is still
a great emergent literacy activity when made up words are
used (e.g., Barb Sarb).
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#2 You may have noticed that when drawing a picture or
writing a word on a page, a preschool child invents the
spelling of the words s/he uses. For instance, when attempting
to signify the words "the end" at the end of their
picture story, a child might write "D N."
This is a normal but fascinating stage in the development
of literacy. Without being directly taught, the child is
constructing his or her own understanding of the different
sounds that occur in the language(s) that s/he speaks.
This is called the phonological system. Now the child is
learning about the sound-symbol relationship, matching sounds
to their corresponding letters, and rules that are used
when spelling.
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As children go through this stage, they are working with
auditory and visual memory, motor development, and modeling
of writing and spelling from others. In the preschool we
encourage the children's invented spelling by saying, "That
is your way of writing _________". So, if a child
says, "Look! I wrote my name!" a way to encourage
your child in this stage of invented spelling would be,
"That is your way to write your name!"
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#3 The Enormous Turnip is a wonderful story about
a family working together to pull a large turnip out of
the ground. The family lines up sequentially from the largest
to the smallest member of the family. Many classic stories
are based on this framework in which the order makes a difference.
Examples of excellent books with story lines that parallel
the character size sequence of The Enormous Turnip
are: The Napping House by Audrey Wood, and The
Mitten, The Hat, and Berlioz the Bear
by Jan Brett. The ability to perceive the order of events
is a foundation of story comprehension. The perception
of sequencing is also important in language comprehension,
and the ability to recreate or spontaneously create one's
own linguistic sequences is a foundation of expressive language.
And, of course, reading, spelling and writing all involve
sequencing of letters and sounds.
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Children see many examples of sequencing in the daily routines
of their lives. You can highlight the sequence of events
in daily routines by verbalizing, "First we_____, then
we ______, and last we_______." By reading stories
with a strong sequential framework, talking through daily
routines, and providing predictable daily routines in your
family life, you are building the foundations for a child's
language and literacy.
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