early literacy: building a strong foundation

Early Literacy: Building a Early Literacy: Building a Strong FoundationStrong Foundation

Early Literacy: Building a Early Literacy: Building a Strong FoundationStrong Foundation

Dr. Denise P. Gibbs, DirectorDr. Denise P. Gibbs, DirectorAlabama Scottish Rite FoundationAlabama Scottish Rite Foundation

Learning Centers Learning Centers

gibbsdenise@aol.comgibbsdenise@aol.com

In this session, we will….

• get familiar with essential early literacy skills including: oral language, print concepts (experiences with books) and phonological awareness.

• Learn about techniques, which can be used in every day interactions with children to stimulate oral language development.

• Learn about techniques, which can be used in every day interactions with children to stimulate development of early print concepts.

• Learn about techniques, which can be used in every day interactions with children to stimulate phonological awareness skills.

Emergent Literacy: Infant’s

environment…

•Skills which lead to literacy begin in earliest infancy as the baby has..–interactions involving talking

–interactions involving print

Five Key Environmental

Factors…

•“Good” language partners•“Positive” experiences with

print•Phonological awareness and

letter recognition•Family attitudes•“Effective” storybook activities.

Importance of early experiences…

•Research indicates that the environment of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers plays a critical role in their successful reading development. – What we do every

day (from the daywe bring them home from the hospital) really matters!

Creating positive experiences involving

talking• Talk or sing during most Talk or sing during most

interactions interactions with the baby.with the baby.– Do use correct speech sounds-”NO

BABY TALK” – Don’t use long sentences– Do talk/sing directly TO the baby– Do use a gentle and loving tone of

voice– Make intonation “interesting” and

varied– Do say baby’s name often! (it

cues them to listen to what comes next as they get older)

Never too young for Never too young for positive experiences with positive experiences with

talkingtalking

Creating positive experiences involving

talking

• Some things to say….Some things to say….–While changing a diaper

•Ooo, Cam you’re wet! Wet-all dry, stinky-all clean, wet diaper, stinky diaper, clean diaper

•Change your diaper-all done–While giving a bottle

•Time to eat, you’re hungry, hungry baby, mmmm good milk, all gone milk

Create positive experiences involving

talking

•While giving a bath– Water, soap,

wash your arm, wash your leg, wash your…

– All clean, towel, dry your….

Create positive experiences involving

talking

•While feeding– Mmmm yum

carrots!– More carrots– Want some

carrots– Another bite– Eat carrots– All gone carrots

Create positive experiences involving

talking

While holding or rocking

– SING! – Snuggle– speak your speak your

heartheart – I love you. you’re a big boy, my sweet baby, I love you’re fingers, sweet little fingers

Create positive experiences involving

talking

• Include siblings/cousins!– Babies like

to listen to people who are closerto their size!

Morgan-3 yrsCam-3 mo

Cam-3 yrsAubrey-17 mo

Good language partners provide indirect

language stimulation

•Indirect language stimulation – do not tell the child to “say this” or to “say that”!

•Child may withdraw from speaking due to the pressure to perform.

–Do provide words to “frame” the child’s play and activities.

Indirect language stimulation techniques

• Parallel TalkParallel Talk (child-centered)– Adult describes what the child is doing,

hearing, seeing, etc as he does it•You’re building the fence.•You see the horse.(adult gives the child 4-5 words to describe the action that child is involved in)

Indirect language stimulation techniques

• Self-TalkSelf-Talk (adult-centered)• Adult describes what she is doing,

hearing, seeing, etc as she does it•I’m washing your foot.•I got the soap(give the child words for what he sees you doing)

Indirect language stimulation techniques

• DescriptionDescription (object-centered)• Adult describes the objects the child

sees or interacts with.•That car is broken.•That block is big.(give the child words to describe things he seems to be interested in looking at)

Indirect language stimulation techniques

• CommentsComments • Adult gives information or describes

upcoming activities.•We are going to go outside.•We need to put on our shoes.•This is our new friend.(provides words to help the child begin to think with words)

Indirect language stimulation techniques

• Open-ended questions (can not Open-ended questions (can not be answered yes or no nor with a be answered yes or no nor with a single word answer)single word answer)

• Adult asks questions to get the child to verbalize their thinking.

•What do you think will happen if the lid gets stuck?

•I wonder what we use this thing for?

Indirect language stimulation techniques

• ExpansionExpansion • Adult repeats the child’s short sentences

or single-word utterances as an adult would have said them.

•Child says “ball”– Adult says “It is a ball.”

•Child says “doggy run”– Adult says “Yes, the doggy is

running.”

(Lets the child know you understood them and that you were paying attention!)

Indirect language stimulation techniques

• Expansion PlusExpansion Plus • Adult lengthens the child’s short

sentences or single word utterances and adds a new bit of information.

•Child says “ball”•Adult says “It is a ball. It’s a red ball”(Lets child know you understood them and have words to say more soon!)

Indirect language stimulation techniques

• RepetitionRepetition • When child says something with

speech sound errors, the adult repeats the utterance with correct sounds.

• Child says “wed wabbit”•Adult says “red rabbit”(Lets child hear correct sounds without being “corrected”.)

Use everything in the environment for language

learning

Pets! Anything

that moves is

interesting

Cooking!

Snack time

A word about vocabulary and ses….

• Average child from welfare family hears about 3 million words per year while average child from professional family hears about 11 million words per year. – By age 4 the gap is 13 to 45 million words

heard!– Child from professional family speaks more

than adult from welfare family

(Hart and Risley, 1995)

Creating positive experiences involving

print

•Start book play early.Start book play early.–Earliest books need toEarliest books need to

•Have good pictures of Have good pictures of familiar thingsfamiliar things

•Not have page clutterNot have page clutter•Be durable!Be durable!•Be “played-with” every Be “played-with” every day (over and over and day (over and over and over)over)

Creating positive experiences involving

print• Let’s see some in Let’s see some in

sequence….sequence….– Single items on page with very familiar

things– Multiple pictures on the page but

separated– Touchy Feely– Repetitive and predictable– Rhyme– Tag - Big brother “reading” to little

brothers!

Touchy Feely Books

Adjectives

Repetitive

Familiar things

Repetitive and

predictableand

rhyming

Familiar and connected

And rhyming!

Children sharing Children sharing booksbooks

• What is Morgan doing?• What is Jordan doing?• Can you tell what Cameron is doing?

Tag (from Leap Frog) – Morgan can read to his brothers!

Dialogic Reading: the “right way to do books”

• First described by Whitehurst in 1988.

• Wonderful way to use books for:1.Language growth2.Social connection3.Positive print experiences

Dialogic Reading – Little one takes the

lead• Don’t worry about the baby not “sitting

still.• Coming and going is really fine!

Dialogic Reading: Question types-CROWD

• C – Completion questions (e.g., Baby bear said, somebody's been sleeping in my bed and________!)

• R – Recall questions (e.g., Can you remember what happened to baby bear's chair?)

• O – Open-ended questions (e.g., What is happening in this picture?)

• W – Wh-questions (e.g., Who ate baby bear's porridge?)

• D – Distancing questions to connect to world knowledge (e.g., Have you ever been for a walk in the woods? Tell me about your walk.)

Dialogic Reading: PEER

• P – Prompt - Ask child to respond to the story through using any of the CROWD questions. (e.g., Can you remember what happened to baby bear's chair? Student answers It got broken.)

• E – Evaluate - Evaluate or affirm a child’s response. (e.g., That's right.)

• E – Expand – Add information to the child's response. (e.g., Goldilocks sat in it and it got broken.)

• R – Repeat – Ask the child to repeat your expanded comment. (e.g., Can you say that?)

Bed-time stories…Bed-time stories…Good Night Moon …Good Night Moon …

yet again!yet again!• What things happen during these

minutes?

That’s Not My Tractor

How about phonological awareness and then phonemic awareness

• Thinking about words – Words in phrases– Words in sentences

• Thinking about syllables– Compound words– Two syllable words

• Thinking about sounds – Rhyming words– First sound in the word

Powerful (and fun) Powerful (and fun) Phonological Awareness Phonological Awareness

ToolTool• Goldsworthy, C.L. (1998). A Sourcebook

of Phonological Awareness Activities: Children’s Classic Literature

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

• Word-level activities– Counting words

• That chair is too soft.

– Identifying missing words• forest, window, flowers / window flowers

– Identifying missing words in phrase/sentence

• Goldilocks woke up at once. / Goldilocks woke up at __.

– Supplying word• She tasted the porridge in the big __.

– Rearranging words• Girl little; I sleepy am; three Goldilocks and

bears the

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

• Syllable-level activities (use pictures from the story and print contexts)– Syllable counting

• Papa, nobody, porridge, chair, shiny, middle, Goldilocks

– Syllable deleting• Say bedroom without bed; say sleeping without -

ing

– Syllable adding• Add stairs to the end of up; add –est to the end of

for

– Syllable reversing• Add some to the end of body (bodysome) what do

you think the word was before we switched the parts

– Syllable substituting• Say asleep. Instead of sleep, say cross (across)

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

• Phoneme-level activities: 25 different types of activities– Beginning with sound matching

(initial)– Includes sound blending,

recognizing and producing rhyme– Identifying and matching sounds at

the beginning, middle, and end of words

– Concludes with deleting sounds, pig Latin, and phoneme switching.

• alphabet knowledge (AK)– : knowledge of the names and sounds

associated with printed letters • phonological awareness (PA):

– the ability to detect, manipulate, or analyze the auditory aspects of spoken language (including the ability to distinguish or segment words, syllables, or phonemes), independent of meaning

• rapid automatic naming (RAN) of letters or digits:– the ability to rapidly name a sequence of

random letters or digits

Report of the National Early Literacy Panel (NELP) 200911 Skills and Abilities that Predict Literacy

Success

Report of the National Early Literacy Panel (NELP) 200911 Skills and Abilities that Predict Literacy

Success

• RAN of objects or colors:– the ability to rapidly name a sequence of

repeating random sets of pictures of objects (e.g., “car,” “tree,” “house,” “man”) or colors

• writing or writing name: – the ability to write letters in isolation on

request or to write one’s own name • phonological memory:

– the ability to remember spoken information for a short period of time.

Report of the National Early Literacy Panel (NELP) 200911 Skills and Abilities that Predict Literacy

Success

• concepts about print: – knowledge of print conventions (e.g.,

left–right, front–back) and concepts (book cover, author, text)

• print knowledge:– a combination of elements of AK,

concepts about print, and early decoding

• .

Report of the National Early Literacy Panel (NELP) 200911 Skills and Abilities that Predict Literacy

Success

• reading readiness:– usually a combination of AK, concepts of

print, vocabulary, memory, and PA

• oral language:– the ability to produce or comprehend spoken

language, including vocabulary and grammar

• visual processing:– the ability to match or discriminate visually

presented symbols.

Some awesome Some awesome resourcesresources

Some awesome Some awesome resourcesresources

Preschool Early Literacy Assessment

Tools

• Test of Preschool Early Literacy – Authors: Lonigan, Wagner, Torgesen &

Rashotte– Publisher: ProEd www.proedinc.com– Ages 3 yrs to 5 yrs 11 mos.– Assesses print knowledge, definitional

vocabulary, and phonological awareness– Provides standard scores to compare child’s

performance to same-age peers

Preschool Early Literacy Assessment

Tools

• Individual Growth Development Indicators (IGDIs) http://igdis.umn.edu

• Picture naming, alliteration, rhyming

• Ages 3-5• Can graph results and provides

instructional suggestions

Get Ready to Read(www.GetReadytoRead.org)

• 20 question early literacy online screening test

• Literacy environment checklists• Literacy activities and materials

– Print knowledge– Emergent Writing– Listening (phonological) awareness

Read Together, Talk Together Kit A and Kit

B• Materials for dialogic reading!• Kit A for 2-3 year-olds / Kit B for 4-5

year-olds• Includes 20 picture books

– both fiction and nonfiction titles• Teacher and Parent Notes for each

book• Program Handbook explaining the

dialogic reading technique• Teacher Training Video• Parent Training Video

Every Child Ready to Read: Literacy Tips for

Parents (Lee Pesky Learning Center)

Topics are individually tailored for three age ranges–infant, toddler, and preschool–and include:

• read-aloud books to develop sound awareness

• perfect picture books for encouraging letter knowledge

• ways to promote verbal language and build vocabulary

• the benefits of symbolic play• fun (and educational) games for car trips• helping youngsters “write” at home• Literacy gift ideas for kids• warning signs of a learning disability

Thank you!Thank you!

gibbsdenise@aol.comgibbsdenise@aol.com

Thank you!Thank you!

gibbsdenise@aol.comgibbsdenise@aol.com