As a perspective teacher, I value the development of literacy even at its earliest of stages. Children are reading before they know how to read. They are reading billboards, symbols on signs, letters on cereal boxes, etc. They may not know what they mean, what they stand for or what they say, but they are aware.It's important for us as parents, as teachers, as people to provide children with as many opportunities to read as possible, whether it's reading to them, allowing them to read themselves, or providing them with materials they can "read". Variety is important when it comes to emergent literacy. Not all children can read words, depending on their literacy level, but that doesn't mean when they look at pictures they don't see a story. Providing children with wordless books, such as . I've even noticed in my own experience working at a daycare center, that although the children can't read the words on the page, they create a story to go along with the pictures. When they ask you to read to them, they know by looking at the length of the words and the paragraph how long it should take you to read the passage to them. Sometimes we don't give enough credit to young children, and judge them by what they don't know rather than what they know, which is quite a lot of information. It's important to encourage, promote, foster and facilitate literacy in any age children, especially young children. We want them to develop into fluid readers and writers and the way we do this is by showing them what it means to read and write, showing them through example, showing them through interactive read alouds and picture walks, and by allowing them time to read independently so they can grow to become an efficient reader.
Amanda's Values
As a perspective teacher, I value the development of literacy even at its earliest of stages. Children are reading before they know how to read. They are reading billboards, symbols on signs, letters on cereal boxes, etc. They may not know what they mean, what they stand for or what they say, but they are aware. It's important for us as parents, as teachers, as people to provide children with as many opportunities to read as possible, whether it's reading to them, allowing them to read themselves, or providing them with materials they can "read". Variety is important when it comes to emergent literacy. Not all children can read words, depending on their literacy level, but that doesn't mean when they look at pictures they don't see a story. Providing children with wordless books, such as . I've even noticed in my own experience working at a daycare center, that although the children can't read the words on the page, they create a story to go along with the pictures. When they ask you to read to them, they know by looking at the length of the words and the paragraph how long it should take you to read the passage to them. Sometimes we don't give enough credit to young children, and judge them by what they don't know rather than what they know, which is quite a lot of information.
It's important to encourage, promote, foster and facilitate literacy in any age children, especially young children. We want them to develop into fluid readers and writers and the way we do this is by showing them what it means to read and write, showing them through example, showing them through interactive read alouds and picture walks, and by allowing them time to read independently so they can grow to become an efficient reader.