Kinderchat

This week I had my first experience with #kinderchat on twitter and thouroughly enjoyed what I saw. When I was browsing through the posts I clicked on a tweet from February 3rd that read "I think the conversation around parent involvement, and support is huge. Parents need to be a teacher first. #kinderchat" This tweet stood out to me because of all of the comments below with responses involving mixed emotions regarding the tweet. Someone came back with "Times have changed, but kids haven't. Parents not knowing what time their kids should go to bed? Problem. #kinderchat" I think this is a good point because even though a parent can be a teacher in life it is very important to make sure to be loving and supportive at all times and for children to know it isn't always all work and no play. The argument got heated and it was interesting to follow along.

Kinderchat is a very beneficial resource for all different kinds of people to gather together and share different materials and opinions on certain topics. Everyone brings up good points and provides unique input on each topic that can help others look at a situation differently or get good ideas to bring into the classroom or provide for their own children.

The Essentials of Early Literacy Instruction

To make sure children get the proper education that they deserve, there are several different ways to promote learning in fun and engaging ways. Learning how to read at a young age needs to be promoted in a fun way so the children learn to enjoy reading and want to continue to grow and learn more. Working in small or large groups and using different materials and the children's past experiences to tie into the lessons in class help create a community where the students want to learn and benefit from all these aspects.

Here are 8 tips for effective early literacy instruction in the classroom:

1. Rich Teacher Talk: engage children in rich conversations in large group, small group, and one-to-one settings.

2. Storybook reading: Read aloud to your class, exposing children to numerous enjoyable stories, poems, and informative books.

3. Phonological awareness activities: Provide activities that increase children's awareness of the sounds of language.

4. Alphabet activities: Engage children with materials that promote identification of the letters of the alphabet.

5. Support for emergent reading: Encourage children to attempt to read books and other types of print.

6. Support for emergent writing: Encourage children to use emergent forms of writing, such as scribble writing, random letter strings and invented spelling.

7. Shared book experience: Read Big books and other enlarged texts to children, and point to the print as it is read.

8. Integrated, content- focused activities: Provide opportunities for children to investigate topics that are interest to them.

Story Telling

While children are in the classroom books are a major part of their experience. Whether they are reading the books themselves, having books be read to them or even just going along with the pictures they are picking up on literacy concepts and learning as they grow. It is always important to chose books or themes that spark interest in children so they are fully engaged and want to keep going and learn more. It is also important to make sure to be supportive as children learn so it encourages them to want to keep going.

As I mentioned previously, it is very important to support children in their reading process. Every child learns at a different pace and encouraging children that they are making progress and that their observations are accurate or on the right pace is a great way to keep them engaged. In an article I just read the main focus is on how important this strategy is in the classroom especially when it comes to storytelling in the classroom. If a book is being read out loud they believe it is necessary to point to the illustrations and talk out what is going on so that the children will be able to associate what is going on in the picture and the words and put them together in the future. Explaining the illustration also helps the children's vocabulary form. helping children develop oral vocabulary at a young age will only benefit them in the long run.



Fun ideas for home or in the classroom

Fingerplay: Make mini people or objects out of felt or on gloves and make characters from different songs or stories to keep the children involved and engaged. They will love to be able to move their fingers along to the beat or hold up the finger with the character on it when it is their turn in the story. This is a fun way to get multiple people involved in a group activity and can be used in the classroom or at home with the family or friends!

Act It Out: Have all of the students sit in a circle on the classroom floor and assign different characters to each child and provide them with a 'bib' which has a picture of each face or animal of every character in the story. When that character is mentioned in the book have that student stand up! It is a great way for the students to stay engaged and pay attention to the story and the illustrations that they are interested in.