Early Literacy

I am super passionate about literacy in early childhood. I saw Nathan Wallis give a talk a few weeks ago about brain development in the first thousand days and how critical those first thousand days are for success in life. Research shows that throughout the population, the eldest sibling is the one who is the highest qualified and earns the most money. And this is because the first baby had had so much more uninterrupted time and face to face interactions with mum. The brain is designed to grow according to what it perceives it will need for survival, and it is designed to interact and respond with a primary caregiver. When the second or third or fourth baby comes along, mum is juggling baby and older siblings, and the consecutive babies do not get the same amount of face to face interactions with mum.
The other thing he said was girls brains develop faster than boys. A girls brain is fully developed between ages 18-24. But a boys brain doesn't fully develop until age 26- 32.
This has quite a few implications on my role as an early childhood teacher and heightens the sense of responsibility I have to promote literacy throughout our day.

Talking to children, having face to face interactions with a caring adult, where infants and babies pick up on your visual cues, eyebrows, smiles - it doesn't matter what you say or sing to them, positive attentive interactions help to kickstart the higher brain and get it ready for higher learning. This means that as teachers, it is our responsibility to engage with young children constantly, talking, singing, listening, playing, questioning, telling stories, giving a running commentary of what the child is doing, to fill their wells so that later, their cup will runneth over.

Barbara Brann talks about the 5 domains, and we need to help children develop in all five domains as they are the foundations (or building blocks) of literacy. If we don't get the foundation skills right, then later on children will struggle with reading/writing because they are missing an essential skill.  The five domains are: Looking; Listening; Movement; Talking; Print.

Literacy is everywhere - it is where ever we are. I am going to share here some of my favourite ways to foster a love of literacy in my room - and it is so easy to do!


Singing
Singing brings joy to the soul. Scientific research has found that singing is one of the only activities that uses nearly every part of the brain. Unfortunately, I often see teachers who choose not to sing because they are not confident or don't think they are very good at singing. Singing should be fun, and as role models, we should be able to show children our lack of confidence but willingness to keep trying, learning and perseverance - this is powerful role modelling. It is powerful for children to see that we don't have all the answers, we don't know everything and we are learners too. And learning is not always easy. It means putting ourselves in a vulnerable position when we show others what we can't do.  I joined a choir to help me develop confidence in singing, as I was not a confident singer when I first began teaching. I have been singing in a choir for 6 years now, and I love it. It brings such joy to my soul, and lightens my spirit. On those evenings when I don't feel like going, it is cold and wet outside and I just want to stay home and I am tired - on those evenings I go, and I come home feeling uplifted and so very glad I went. Singing is fun and it is a joyful, essential part of my life now.

So... sing! Sing in the sandpit! I sing nursery rhymes such as "pat a cake" when children are making cakes in the sandpit. I sing "This is the way we sweep the floor" when I sweep up the leaves or the sand outside. Burst out into song whenever you feel like it or see a child doing something that reminds you of a nursery rhyme/playground rhyme. In the playground I often sing "London Bridge is falling down", and "Oranges and Lemons" - and now they organise these singing games themselves and sing it themselves. I sing London Bridge in the block corner when someone's bridge falls down. If children see us role modelling singing, they will do it too. And this builds up vocabulary, rhythm, rhyme, sentence structure; and children learn to hear and distinguish between sounds, pitch, and tone. If infants and young children are not exposed to singing, they will not pick up on hearing the differences of pitch and tone naturally and will find it much harder to learn later on.

Jump Rope... whether using a skipping rope held between two people for one child to jump over; or the teacher holding one end of the rope and swinging it around in a circle for children to jump over; or two people holding the ends of the rope low to the ground and wriggling it back and forth for children to jump over... this is a great opportunity to sing or chant jumping rhymes. I find that jumping rhymes have a really good, solid beat to them.

Some jumping rhymes I tend to use all the time are:
Mabel, Mabel, set the table. Do it as fast as you're able. Don't forget the salt, pepper, vinegar, mustard. Salt, pepper, vinegar, mustard.

A horse, a flea, and three blind mice. Sat on a kerbstone shooting dice. The horse he slipped and fell on the flea. The flea said, "Whoops, there's a horse on me!"

My mother said, I never should, play with the gypsys in the wood. If I did, she would say, naughty girl to disobey. Disobey, disobey, naughty girl to disobey.

This is one I made up for the wriggly worm game using a skipping rope low to the ground - this is easier for young children to jump over.
Jump over the wriggly worm, Yeeha! Jump over the wriggly worm, Yeeha! Jump over, jump over, jump over, jump over, jump over the wriggly worm!

If children are climbing on the dome, I like to sing "5 little monkeys sitting in a tree, teasing Mr Crocodile...", and then the children tend to make that into a game themselves with one person being a crocodile (or three crocodiles). Then we often end up with 7 monkeys on the dome, as more children want to come and play, so rather than the number of monkeys diminishing with each verse, it increases!

I have noticed when playing these singing games in the playground, that lots of children will stop what they are doing and come running over to join in. It helps to engage and include children who are not otherwise engaged or who don't have a friend to play with. It helps re-engage children who were previously just running around. A singing game will quickly increase from two children playing, to 12 children playing. Jump Rope often ends up with 9-15 children playing, all engaged and singing and waiting their turn. I am always pleasantly pleased at how keen children are to play singing games with me. For London Bridge, the children love to make up their own verses and think of creative ways to build London Bridge up and for it to fall down.

Rakau sticks are also great for singing waiata, and helps promote crossing the midline, and co-ordination.
Simple clapping games also promote crossing the midline and co-ordination.

Thinking and Learning Books
This is the project approach, and childrens thoughts and ideas and questions are written into a book, and they can add their own pictures, and photos as they investigate a particular topic.

Write down what children say and put it on the walls. I like making thought bubbles to write down children's thoughts, to display on the wall. Children start to see the link between speaking and writing, and that their own words are written down.

Matching Games

We had a pirate theme last month, and one of the games I created was a matching game. Not a game where you match up things that are the same, but match things that go together. This requires a little more thinking as children have to think about what goes together and why.
eg Canon and Canonball
Pirate and ships wheel
parrot and feather
telescope and stars
map and compass
treasure chest and gold
anchor and chain

Other ways I like to support literacy includes:
Card games

Board games

Reading books

Marbles (good for eye tracking)

Active story telling - where I tell the story and we all do the actions along with the story, to act it out. I do this with well known fairytales such as The 3 little Pigs; Goldilocks; Jack and the Beanstalk.

Memory Games - both card games and Kims Game, where I use objects and take one away.

Clipboards, paper and pencils in the sandpit

Clipboards, paper and pencils in the block corner


For more of my teaching resources and ideas, please click on the link here.