Developing Early Literacy Skills

Practical Ideas and Activities

Katharine Bodle

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780429780868
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Bildung Allgemein

A valuable resource for professionals working with pre-school children, or with older children lacking basic literacy skills, this book provides practical photocopiable activities to develop the early skills required for success with literacy. Includes: rhyming activities; alphabet activities; phonological awareness; writing and handwriting; and reading. Each section is structured so that children can build up their knowledge and skills. Developed within the classroom, these ideas and activities can be used with a range of children in whole class, group and individual situations both at home and in pre-school settings. Designed to help children showing early signs of dyslexia or a specific learning difficulty, these activities will also benefit older children who lack a foundation of early literacy skills. This updated edition reflects changes in legislation, and includes refreshed word lists and new subject areas, such as visual perception, fine and gross motor skills. It is invaluable for teachers, learning support assistants, nursery workers, parents and carers.

SECTION 1

Basic skills

Introduction

Teaching guidelines

Activities

Using spoken language

General activities for school and home

Sharing reading

General activities for home

General activities for school and home

Turn-taking

General activities for school and home

Being aware of sounds

Activities for school and home

Activity 1: Locating sounds

Activity 2: Identifying sounds

Activity 3: Sound shakers game

Activity 4: Distinguishing sounds

Using auditory and visual memory

Activities for school and home

Activity 5: Kim’s game

Activity 6: Sequencing pictures

Activity 7: Matching pairs

Activity 8: My Granny went shopping

Activity 9: Can you do what I do?

Activity 10: Can you find it?

Activity 11: Sound pairs

Sequencing

Activities for school and home

Activity 12: Sequencing actions

Activity 13: Sequencing daily events

Activity 14: Following a recipe

Activity 15: Sequencing patterns

Activity 16: Visual timetable

Activity 17: Songs, rhymes and stories

Visual perception

Activities for school and home

Activity 18: Puzzlesheets

Activity 19: Find it

Activity 20: Build it

Photocopiable resource sheet

Introduction

The activities in Sections 2 to 6 assume that children have the basic skills that one would normally expect of their age group. If these skills are weak or lacking, then take some time to work on them by using this section before you start the activities in the rest of the manual. This should ensure that each child derives maximum benefit from the activities and makes progress in improving his literacy skills.

Using spoken language

If you encourage children to use spoken language in its correct form, they will be more likely to use complex sentences containing rich and varied vocabulary when writing. Their comprehension when reading will also improve as they will have a wide knowledge of words to draw upon.

Sharing reading

Sharing rhymes, stories and other books will help children to extend their vocabulary and will open the door to a whole new world of entertainment and information.

Turn-taking

This is an important life skill, and many games and activities within schools rely on children being able to take turns. Turn-taking is also important in conversing with others, with questions and answers alternating between different people.

Being aware of sounds

Being aware of sounds in the environment ensures that a child has the ability to listen critically and distinguish sounds in the spoken word. This is necessary when breaking words down into individual sounds (phonemes) when reading or spelling.

Using auditory and visual memory

A good memory is important in all aspects of learning. The short-term or working memory can hold between five and nine items if trained properly; most people remember about seven items, and some can remember many more.

It is important to learn how to ‘chunk’ items together in order to remember them more effectively. For example, it would be difficult to remember axpvswluqity, but it is easier to remember even a nonsense word like redbincastal. This second ‘word’ has the same number of letters as the first, but we can chunk it into red/bin/castal and remember it as three items. It is possible to train the short-term memory and by doing this we enable information to be held longer, to be manipulated and to be placed in the long-term memory.

When working with children it is helpful to bear in mind that we all remember best those things that:

•we use or practise frequently

•we have learnt recently

•are important or meaningful to us.

Sequencing

Sequencing skills rely on memory and on seeing patterns. We use many sequences in our daily lives, from remembering the order in which to dress, to using the sequence of the alphabet (when using a telephone directory) or knowing the order of the days of the week (when planning ahead). This section contains activities and techniques that can be used to improve these basic skills. They can be used both to check whether the basics skills are in place and as reinforcement activities.

Visual perception skills

Visual perception is the way the brain interprets what it sees. This is different to eye ‘vision’ which s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Section 1: Basic skills
• Section 2: Rhyming
• Section 3: Learning the alphabet
• Section 4: Phonological awareness
• Section 5: Reading
• Section 6: Writing and handwriting
• Conclusion
• Resources and suppliers
• Useful organisations
• Recommended books for young children
• References and further reading