Our goal in our classroom is to build a community of literacy learners. It is important for children to see themselves as individuals who talk, listen, read, write and explore media texts (commercials, magazines, newspapers, etc.) in order to make sense of their world. We want our children to feel empowered in their lives and to feel like they actively contribute to their learning. Literacy activities (reading, writing, listening) are embedded throughout the day in authentic and meaningful ways. This takes places everywhere in our classroom - the sand table, stories read by teachers, quiet time with books, drama centre, etc. As a parent one of the greatest gifts you can give your child is the gift of time, spending some time before bed reading a story is a great way to engage with your child and give them the skills of reading. Even if it is a story a few years beyond their ability that you read with an elder sibling you are modelling the proper ways to read and it gives your child the skills to help them throughout school. Below are some examples of the ways we are building a community of literacy learners.
Here is one of our students using Magic Foam (Shaving Cream) to spell her name. This is a great sensory activity and also helps make writing fun! It allows mistakes to be easily erased and we can explore how to print big and small.
Every week we are learning a new letter sound. Our Kindergarten program uses the Jolly Phonics program that makes learning new letter sounds fun through music and actions. For at home ideas, please check out their website here. Here is a sheet that explains the actions that go with each letter sound. This is a great tool to use at home to practice the action and sound. Please review our class calendar to see what letter we are working on each week. We always look for new ways to make learning the letter and sound fun and below is an example of when we use our own bodies to make giant life size letters in class! Below we have made the letter I.
Writing takes place in many stages and it is important to allow our young learners to develop at their own pace. Children are wonderful self regulators and it is our job to follow their lead for readiness. Here are a few writing examples in our classroom - as you can see it is hard work!
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| Writing a letter at the writing centre. |
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| We LOVE whiteboards in our classroom. We use them for drawing and printing practice. Here a student is practicing perfecting the letter D (both uppercase and lowercase). |
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| Using whiteboards this student is writing D words. He has come up with the word Dad and even included a smiling picture. |
Allowing our students to read and explore books on their own allows them the opportunity to practice reading skills modelled by the teacher and to create their own stories. Below is a picture of two students reading a picture book together:
