Environmental Print Awareness

As children develop their literacy skills, both inside and outside the classroom, they are doing so by becoming aware of their surroundings and environment, through print. Print not only refers to the written word, as many of us think of, but it also refers to images, signs, and/or logos.

We can think of a child developing print awareness as being a piece of the puzzle -the whole picture/puzzle being their literacy development - and that with this piece of the puzzle a child is able to get a better sense of literacy. As children begin to identify print around them they're developing a sense of understanding. Children begin to see how print is arranged and displayed, how it works, and that it carries meaning. In order to assign meaning to the images that a child sees, they look for the context clues within the signs. Context clues may be actual writing, familiar images, shape, color, size, etc. 

Children will also draw upon past experiences or familiar experiences in order to make meaning out of print. For example, children whose families consistently go to McDonald's will be able to recognize the golden arches anywhere and therefore know that that image means McDonald's. However, a child from another country who has never seen McDonald's , or its golden arches, will not be able to make meaning out of the image.  Each child's print awareness will vary according to the various types of environments that they're in. 

Parents and teachers can support growth in children's print awareness by providing environments that have rich AND meaningful print. Ideas for such environments can be: pretend stores with logos and facilitating make-believe restaurants with menus. Parents can also help children become print aware by: 

• Reading with your child every day!
• Playing “I Spy” games in the car or in the grocery story to “discover print”
• Modeling reading books, magazines, newspapers, the mail,
 messages, etc.

We must keep in mind that for young children developing literacy skills print awareness is an important piece  of the puzzle!

Read Alouds

When considering children's literature, we must not only keep  children's interests in mind but we must also be mindful of how we present the story.

Children may be attracted to story telling in different ways and as teachers we must provide them with different ways of interacting and entering the literacy world. A few ways in which read aloud stories can be enhanced are by incorporating puppetry into the stories. Puppets allow children to interact with them as they would with their peers. Puppets may also help introduce a story, characters or get discussions going about certain themes or topics. Another way in which we can present a read aloud story interactively is by choosing stories which have repetition of sounds, rhythm or style. Although some children may not be able to read the actual words on the pages they will be able to remember words that are repeated and/or sounds that the book emphasizes. The books style (white spaces, color, focus of picture on the pages, etc.) also allows children to interact with the books on their own, making up their own story. 

Acclaimed children's author and literacy advocate, Mem Fox also emphasizes how important the way in which we read children's books can be. On her website she provides a Read Aloud Lesson in which she emphasizes that our voices play a vital role in story telling. Our voice rhythm, the ups and downs, the loudness or softness as well as our rhythm, fast or slow, can influence how children experience a story. We must also be aware of what we are reading and which tone of voice to use. Stories about adventure ask for a fast paced, loud voice while stories about family may need a softer, loving voice. Fox also mentions that the first and last lines of a story are also crucial in how children will receive a story. It's important to capture the audience's attention, by using the different tricks of our voices as well as facial expressions and pauses. The last lines of a story can also be captivating. She explains that the last lines of a story are a farewell to the audience and that as  readers we must make sure that we emphasize words and provide closure for the audience. 

We must keep in mind that stories can be an emotional journey and that  as teachers we need to provide different ways for children to enter that journey. 

Literacy is Individual

Literacy is achieved by different means and experiences presented to each child. There is no cookie cutter way by which all children learn literacy, each child's experience is individualized. The article Remembering Critical Lessons in Early Literacy -Research: A Transactional Perspective by Whitmore, et.al.,   talked about how literacy is individual and before a child has formal training (i.e. school or someone teaching them to read) they are still able to make out the meaning of books, words, and even sounds. Numerous experiences, starting from birth, contribute to the individuality of their learning. Whitmore, et. al. posed the example of a little girl writing a get well card, even though she did not know how to spell all the words. She knew that certain letters make certain sounds and can sound similar to others, that words are written from left to right and that cards are written in a specific way (introduction, message and closing). These type of experiences along with others, such as using symbols or eye movement to recognize important words/sounds, are what help children learn literacy way before they enter a formal learning setting. As a teacher, it's important to keep in mind that due to the individual nature that children learn, there is no one way that literacy can be taught. We must be open to new and untried methods and always keep in mind the child as a whole, their backgrounds, languages,cultural practices, etc. that may influence how they learned and will continue to learn about literacy.