The best way to Educate Preschoolers Literacy Abilities



Instructing younger kids literacy expertise might be tough. They’re such an essential ability that it might develop into downright intimidating to show them to your college students.

Which comes first? Letter names? Or letter sounds?

The solutions to these questions are tough. Determining the place to start out may give even probably the most seasoned preschool educators a headache.

However, fortunate for you, that is precisely what I’ll be discussing on this week’s episode of Elevating Early Childhood.

Tune in now and study all you should find out about instructing letter identification and sounds in preschool and which one to start out with.

Are you prepared?

Let’s dive in!

Which Literacy Abilities Ought to You Educate First within the Preschool Classroom? 

This can be a query that many individuals, each academics and homeschoolers alike, find yourself asking themselves whereas instructing preschoolers. 

The very first thing we have to know as early childhood educators is that studying the alphabet, or another literacy ability, is just not linear. A whole lot of literacy studying is going down concurrently, as a substitute of 1 after the opposite.

Consider this in relation to how a child develops expertise. When a child is simply studying tips on how to stroll, they’re additionally creating different expertise on the identical time. They’re not simply studying tips on how to stroll and nothing else. 

My husband’s niece, for instance, is twelve months outdated, and she or he’s now studying tips on how to stroll. She’s additionally studying tips on how to discuss and tips on how to feed herself on the identical time. The exact same factor is true for early childhood literacy expertise. 

The best way to Educate a Baby Literacy Abilities

Younger kids study all the pieces, not simply letters, from repeated publicity over time. So, for instance, let’s say you’re studying a e-book and also you wish to educate a toddler the letter P. The easiest way to do it’s by displaying them an image of the letter, figuring out it to them, and asking them if they will discover it.

Should you actually wished to counterpoint this exercise and take it a step additional, you may say, “That is the letter P, the P says ‘puh’, are you able to say ‘puh’? Can you discover the letter P?”

And you may lengthen this even additional and have the kid look within the mirror whereas making the sound that the letter P makes. This fashion, they’re going to be watching their lips as they are saying the sound, to allow them to see what their lips are doing.

Preserve the Kids’s Age in Thoughts

What I like to recommend for anyone, dad and mom and academics alike, is to take a look at the CDC’s milestones for developmental skills, which breaks down what kids are usually capable of do at a given age.

For instance, three yr olds are nonetheless very a lot within the exploratory stage, in response to the CDC pointers. They’ve solely been on this planet for thirty-six months, they usually’re nonetheless attempting to determine how this complete talking and language factor works.

That implies that three yr olds don’t have to be bombarded with repeated requests to provide letters on command. Merely constructing on their publicity to letters at that age is loads, and it’ll go a protracted option to laying a strong literacy basis for them.

Consider a younger youngster’s mind like a backyard. You don’t simply sprinkle just a few seeds on some actually dry earth and count on a extremely lush, beautiful backyard to develop. 

No, it’s important to put together the soil to obtain the seeds. After which when you try this, you’re going to water the seeds, you’re going to drag the weeds, and also you’re going to do all the pieces you’ll be able to to assist your backyard thrive. 

Serving to a younger youngster develop literacy expertise takes the identical quantity of labor.

I focus on all of this in additional depth within the episode above, so be sure to present it a hear when you’ll be able to. I promise, it’s a enjoyable one!