Colores, Numeros, and Emergent Literacy

Long before children begin to decode printed words, they're developing literacy skills. Emergent Literacy is the process of developing an awareness and control of print language, which occurs before young children begin reading and writing conventionally. Young children in the stage of emergent literacy discover concepts about print which is necessary for being successful in later stages of literacy, and learn how pleasurable reading books and being read to is.

We all know that research indicates that literacy-enriched environments can increase the number of literacy activities and events happening in the classroom. Preschoolers can construct their knowledge about literacy better in an environment where they can do some practices, observations, explorations, and experiments with literacy.

Emergent Literacy has been co-constructed at multiple places at multiple times at school. In small groups, I’ve been exploring with the children their names on the overhead, and they've had opportunities to feel the shape of the letters that make up their names; we used the sandpaper letters to trace each letter of their name (adding the tactile component). We've also enjoyed searching for letters in pictures of common outdoor objects.











Another way is to encourage children to tell stories, which Krista has been working on with the children (stories are being posted in the foyer as they're constructed). Stories not only provide an outlet for imagination, they help children understand how narrative text is structured. As children make up stories they are building expectations about what they will find when they learn to read. Children also use stories to process information and to make sense of their lives‚ something that will help them develop socially and emotionally.

It is also important to encourage children child to *write* and scribble. Attempting to write builds awareness of the shapes of letters and words. In the atelier, the children have been writing and drawing with Christine. These are just some of the ways the environment facilitates emergent literacy education.
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Español

I've been able to do some small group work with spanish. Some words we've been learning are colors and more recently, numbers.

Here's a list

rojo.....red
anaranjado.....orange
azul.....blue
amarillo.....yellow
verde.....green
negro.....black
blanco.....white
rosa.....pink
morado.....purple
brown.....café (also called marrón, although I never heard that version growing up)

uno.....one
dos..... two
tres.....three
cuatro.....four
cinco.....five
seis.....six
siete.....seven
ocho.....eight
nueve.....nine
diez.....ten

Other Fun Snippets

"I LOVE my name!"-Mia G.






Christine playing the guitar for the children. Did you know she can play not only the guitar, but also the piano?