Print with a Purpose

As you set up your centers/stations and add to and rearrange/refresh them during the year (please tell me you do that), I want to encourage you to step back and look at the print you have in your children's environment. Although exposure to print is a great tool, it can become just visual "white noise" unless you plan carefully.

When you post ANY print, make sure you have a specific, scientifically-based purpose behind it. I'd rather see 10 things labeled purposefully in your classroom than 20 things labeled just for the sake of having a label. Here's an example:

If we label every piece of furniture and fixture in home living but we never call our children's attention to the print and talk about it (the number of letters in the word, that it is a "word", recognizing letters the child may have mastered or is at least familiar with, talking about the meaning of the word), then we are being wasteful and missing incredible opportunity. A few children might learn conventionally to read that word but all can identify that the word on the thing you sit in, with four legs, is a "chair" and talk about what chairs are used for. Don't let your focus be on decoding; let it be on seeing that print has a purpose and celebrate icing on the cake for your most advanced children if they can decode the word conventionally. It is all about meeting children where they are in their spectrum of development and not skipping over important milestones in the "rush to read".

Use print to show children how print is used in the real world (making lists, charts, comparisons, writing letters home to family, taking dictation from children to caption their artwork or record a retelling or original story).

Also post chilidren's artwork with captions dictated by the children to celebrate their already-present literacy.

You can find out more about environmental print and purposeful print in preschool classrooms through these great resources:

Play in the Preschool Classroom

What Works

An excerpt from Pat Kuby, et al's book on Environmental Print (preschool and early elementary)

The Impact of Environmental Print

How do you purposefully place print in your classroom? Stay tuned next time for how reading aloud adds to print awareness.

Storytelling in Preschool

Today I received an inquiry from an author who wanted to talk about storytelling and its impact on literacy in preschoolers. What a great topic!

Anyone can tell a story. Young children's oral language development, vocabulary and their ability to communicate with confidence grow during the preschool years more than any other time in their lives. Tap into the natural opportunities in your classroom to encourage this skill of storytelling. Here are a couple of ideas that you can use in the classroom tomorrow:

1) Especially if you work with 2-3 year old children, you hear often "read that story again!" Children are learning about the structure of stories, that there is a beginning, middle and end, as they listen to familiar books. They are also learning how just the right word choice makes a story lively and communicates what they feel. Place a few props (felt or laminated pieces representing the main characters in a story, or objects that appear in the story) to help children remember the proper sequence in the story as they retell it in your "book nook" or storytelling center. Incorporate that into circle time where the children are actively engaged in helping tell a familiar story when you prompt with "what happens next?"

2) Busy parents need ideas for how to encourage their children's growing literacy and storytelling is one of the best. Our children love to hear about the day they were born, their mom or dad's life when they were a child, etc. First ask them to share a few of those stories with their children, taking time to elaborate and give good details. I still remember stories from my childhood like that. It also gives children a sense of belonging and personal history. Also remind families that letting their child tell stories (the one they heard in the family or one from school) help children learn to use our language effectively. They will also learn incredible things about their children when they listen. Teach your parents how to expand on what their children are saying, reflect back to them and ask for more!

3) Model good storytelling. To do that, you need to watch some great storytellers in action. There are storytelling festivals all over the country. In my own neck of the woods, there's an annual Athens (AL) Storytelling Festival with lots of different styles (funny, entertaining, sentimental, and thought-provoking). Check out the storytelling festivals in Jonesboro TN (The International Storytelling Festival), Three Rivers in Pittsburg, PA or The Toe River festival in my own native state North Carolina.

Don't forget that children tell stories when they talk about what they are doing in centers during free play time. Expand on what they say, encourage them to share through language and create great stories there too (a few of which you can take down in dictation and share with the world!)

Enjoy the story!

Setting Up Your Centers

All of you are working hard getting ready for school(or a few of you may have already started). Think outside the box with a few ideas for incorporating literacy in every one of them.

1) Think incorporation/integration - not "lessons". Blackmasters and worksheets will come soon enough in elementary school. In the blocks center, for instance, enlarge copies of floor plans from real estate magazines, have copies of Architectural Digest or other construction/building magazines and model for your children how to search those for building and construction ideas. Include a hard hat and clip board so they can draw their own designs.

2) Don't forget writing. Instead of having a designated writing center, why not make a portable one that can move with the children. A shower caddy, metal paint bucket or peach basket (for those of us in the South) all work well. Stock it with writing utensils, letter stamps and patterns, plenty of paper (ask your families to contribute note cards they get as samples in the mail or those address labels from charities). Keep it in a prominent place and remind your children that it's available. Deliver it to centers at first to increase usage.

Be sure to join children from time to time in their writing attempts. Allow them to dictate captions for their art work, notes to Mom and Dad or a "I need to talk aloud to solve this problem" notes. All of these solidify in young children's minds the various authentic purposes for writing.

3) Think of the center where the least literacy is present. Ask yourself how you can infuse reading, writing, listening, communicating and viewing into that center. Feel free to share your ideas!

TLA, Inc. has a newly revised workshop on Literacy In Every Center. You can visit us at www.readingisforeveryone.org or email cathypmiller@comcast.net for details.