LITERACY

Early Literacy: Making Marks!

Our Literacy program isn’t just teaching children the alphabets or reading them a book. We give children many opportunities through out the day to explore all aspects of literacy. We use a variety of different materials to teach literacy, keeping children engaged and excited about learning.

Making Marks, Creating Symbols, Reading the Meaning! This is the basics of writing and reading. Young children must first learn to control their marks. This equates to children gaining control of their hands and fingers so they can manipulate their writing instruments to create lines and curves.

At Imagine, children are given many opportunities to make marks so they can gain control fast. Once control is gained, then children practice their lines. We discuss the types of lines we can create and take the children on a journey of marks. This is an organic way for children to learn to form letters.

We first start with “how to read pictures” so children can “read” books by themselves and have meaningful discussions with their peers about what they see.

We use the “CROWD” method to read books to children which is a technique to help very young children learn to read later. This technique helps them to hear Fluent Reading, see Written Language, gain New Vocabulary, Letter and Word Recognition, develop Critical Thinking, learn Listening Comprehension, understand Story Structure, learn about Different Characters, learn about Different Social Situations, learn Social Skills like Persistence, Perspective-Taking, and Empathy, gain knowledge of the World Around them, have an Appreciation for Literature.

At Imagine, children PLAY and have FUN with letters, reading, and writing so they are excited about literacy and can focus for long periods of time, which is needed to learn to read and write.

Learning to Read and Write is a long journey that begins with making marks and sounds.