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!
No comments:
Post a Comment