Every Child Ready to Read

I have attended two separate Every Child Ready to Read workshops in the past six months and also took a graduate level class about early literacy.  I have written several papers about the importance of early literacy skills and children's books that can be used in teaching literacy skills.  So in other words, I am passionate about early literacy.  

Last year in preschool storytime I tried to incorporate the six early literacy skills:  Phonological Awareness, Letter Recognition, Vocabulary, Narrative Skills,  Print Motivation, Print Awareness.  I didn't talk much about them with the parents, I just did them every week at storytime.  A "letter a week" approach worked very well for me and lent itself to easily incorporate early literacy skills.  

This year I will be doing many of the same things, however, I will be emphasizing the five practices from Every Child Ready to Read 2 (which are ways to learn the six skills).  These are five easy thing that parents and caregivers can do every day to "teach" early literacy skills to children.  They are:

• Singing
• Talking
• Reading
• Playing
• Writing

The beauty of this program is that parents and caregivers, for the most part, are already doing these things with their children.  By emphasizing these activities at storytime I hope to help parents and caregivers be more mindful of the time they spend with their child and to take one extra step towards enhancing the experiences.

What to expect at Preschool Storytime:

We will, of course, read, usually two picture books--one with a substantial story and the other with rhythm and rhymes. We will also "read" a nursery rhyme every week--recite the rhyme while I point to the words in a sentence chart.  

Each week we will sing several songs, including the ABC song--some of the songs will be repeated each week and we will usually have one action song that goes with the letter of the day.

As I read aloud I try to allow children time to talk and respond to the stories.  Of course this depends on the number of children present.  To accommodate the larger crowds we will be doing a "survey" every week that parents and caregivers can talk about together.

Playing is an essential part of child's development and critical in developing early literacy skills.  For several years I have been doing what I call "enrichment activities" following storytime.  This is a time for children to try new things, explore, color, write, cut, glue, and be active.  Now I feel "justified" in doing these things every week!

I will be striving to add writing more into storytimes.  Although one may think that writing is writing the letters on practice worksheets, writing can be so much more (and so much more fun for the children!)  We will be drawing lines to matching objects, tracing curved lines, and doing mazes and dot-to-dots.  We will usually have some kind of "alphabet" activity.

Every Child Ready to Read is an exciting approach to not only do in storytimes, but to encourage parents and caregivers to enjoy quality time together with their children singing, talking, reading, playing and writing!