I haven´t posted for a while, but I have been busy teaching student teachers at the University of Barcelona who are studying to become preschool and primary teachers and I thought it would be a good time to resume posting once again. One of the several interesting and important topics we have covered in this last course, has been the importance of pre-literacy and literacy skill development in the preschool and primary English classroom.
As I do these courses, I am always reminded of the need to expose primary English teachers to the world of teaching/learning how to read and write. As our young learners are learning how to read in their first language, it is a wonderful opportunity for us to build on and support this reading and writing skill development. The thing here, is that most primary and preschool English teachers have no explicit training in teaching young children how to read and write. Many believe that with the skills students learn in their first language, they should be able to begin reading and writing in English with little explicit instruction. I would love to believe that this is true but classroom experience has shown me that there is really so much we can do in the primary English classroom to actually teach and not only support emerging literacy skills, thereby creating opportunities for student success.
So for this reason, I am including a few simple hands-on, student-centered, multisensory activities which we can do with young learners so that learning to begin to read and write in English is fun, engaging and instructive. One powerful strategy is to focus on letters! Learning with letters can help us to do many things in the classroom. It can:
1. help develop and improve simple pre-reading and pre-writing skills
2. help build vocabulary comprehension and pronunciation
3. help young learners develop their own ideas about letters, words, sounds and how English works
4. help increase site reading word counts and
5. help foster a love for letters, words and books
Here are five different "learning with letters" activities I have used successfully with my students and shared with teachers in many of my workshops. These activities can form a part of your basic literacy classroom routines.
Flashcard Fun: Hide and seek!
Find five food flashcards and five corresponding colour letter or word flashcards, words or letters that your students have seen. Hide them around the class. Put sts in groups of three. Have sts look for them. They must search for the image and the matching letter or word flashcard. When a st finds one, he or she calls out.. “I´ve got one!” or “I found one!” . The groups have 30 seconds to consult with each other and then say the word to the class. If correct, the group gets a point for the match. The flashcards are posted on the board or on a bulletin board or poster area that says "Our new words for the day". Once all 5 pairs of the flashcards are found and posted, the students can join the teacher in "reading" out loud these words while seeing the letter and/or word and the image at the same time.
Air writing and/or Body writing
This can be a stand alone activity to be done anytime during the class when you are working on letter recognition or it can immediately used to follow up a letter/sound activity such as the first one I have explained above. For example, if after the activity above, you have posted the flashcards for all the students to see, you can say, "Ok, I´m going to call out one of these foods. When you hear the name of the food, write the sound of the first letter of that food in the air. For example, pear!" Teacher models or demonstrates how she writes a "p" in the air. Once she is sure that everyone has written the correct letter in the air, the teacher can say to the students, "Ok, now turn to your classmate on your right. (teacher demonstrates the right side). on their back, write the letter so that they can feel it. As you write it, say the sound that letter makes." Teacher demonstrates this with a student. Students of all ages, young learners, teens and even adults enjoy and are assisted with a multi sensory letter/sound recognition activity when we ask them to air write and body write!
Sound Sleuths!
Play “sound sleuths!” A sleuth is a detective or someone who searches for something. Have your students search for sounds. This is a good activity to teach and work beginning, middle and end sounds. Put your students in groups of three. Tell your students that you will say a sound and its position in the word. Air write this letter or sound in the air for them to see. Students then have 2 minutes to go around the class and make a list and/or find or point to all the words they can find with that sound in that position. If the students are just asked to find the letter/letter combination with that sound, once they find it, they are to call out "We found it!". Teacher moves to the students to confirm their find and provide the appropriate feedback, such as " Yes, well done! Can you say that sound for me again? Great work!"
Touchable letters (great for preschool and first cycle children and older students who confuse letter sounds and letters in general), Materials: two pieces of paper, glue stick and lentils/rice/scrap paper/ or cotton baton
First make an envelope with one piece of paper. Fold it horizontally so that there is a small flap. Now take a second piece of paper and cut it in four. Now take one of these 4 slips of papers. Have students trace out the letter you are practicing on a piece of paper using a glue stick. Make sure the letter is big and occupies the full size of slip of the paper. Now take some lentils, cotton, rice, small pieces of scrap paper (good for recycling and using up old scraps of paper) or any other material that is “touchable” and will stick to glue.
Tell students to place this material directly on top of the glue. They will see the shape of the letter formed by this material magically appear in a touchable format. Students can then pass their finger over the material and “feel” as well as “see” the shape of the letter. This is a wonderfully kinaesthetic activity that allows all students to succeed in writing and pronouncing the sounds of letters. Of course, this activity can be done with just the vowels, as a lesson on vowels and their sounds and/or with consonant blends (two or more consonants where two sounds are heard "bl"), consonant digraphs (two or consonants where only one sound is heard ie. "sh") or vowel diphthongs (two or more vowels come together and make a sound ie. "ow").
Pipe Cleaner Letters
Give the students a pipe cleaner. Call out the name of a letter and show students how they can make the letter with the pipe cleaner. Once you have done this several times or with older students who have already learned the alphabet but need review and consolidation practice, let them be creative and design their own pipe cleaner letters, You can even create a classroom pipe cleaner alphabet to be displayed for and touched by the students.
I hope these activities inspire you to create and experiment with "learning with letters" -kinds of activities.
Happy teaching,
Theresa
As I do these courses, I am always reminded of the need to expose primary English teachers to the world of teaching/learning how to read and write. As our young learners are learning how to read in their first language, it is a wonderful opportunity for us to build on and support this reading and writing skill development. The thing here, is that most primary and preschool English teachers have no explicit training in teaching young children how to read and write. Many believe that with the skills students learn in their first language, they should be able to begin reading and writing in English with little explicit instruction. I would love to believe that this is true but classroom experience has shown me that there is really so much we can do in the primary English classroom to actually teach and not only support emerging literacy skills, thereby creating opportunities for student success.
So for this reason, I am including a few simple hands-on, student-centered, multisensory activities which we can do with young learners so that learning to begin to read and write in English is fun, engaging and instructive. One powerful strategy is to focus on letters! Learning with letters can help us to do many things in the classroom. It can:
1. help develop and improve simple pre-reading and pre-writing skills
2. help build vocabulary comprehension and pronunciation
3. help young learners develop their own ideas about letters, words, sounds and how English works
4. help increase site reading word counts and
5. help foster a love for letters, words and books
Here are five different "learning with letters" activities I have used successfully with my students and shared with teachers in many of my workshops. These activities can form a part of your basic literacy classroom routines.
Flashcard Fun: Hide and seek!
Find five food flashcards and five corresponding colour letter or word flashcards, words or letters that your students have seen. Hide them around the class. Put sts in groups of three. Have sts look for them. They must search for the image and the matching letter or word flashcard. When a st finds one, he or she calls out.. “I´ve got one!” or “I found one!” . The groups have 30 seconds to consult with each other and then say the word to the class. If correct, the group gets a point for the match. The flashcards are posted on the board or on a bulletin board or poster area that says "Our new words for the day". Once all 5 pairs of the flashcards are found and posted, the students can join the teacher in "reading" out loud these words while seeing the letter and/or word and the image at the same time.
Air writing and/or Body writing
This can be a stand alone activity to be done anytime during the class when you are working on letter recognition or it can immediately used to follow up a letter/sound activity such as the first one I have explained above. For example, if after the activity above, you have posted the flashcards for all the students to see, you can say, "Ok, I´m going to call out one of these foods. When you hear the name of the food, write the sound of the first letter of that food in the air. For example, pear!" Teacher models or demonstrates how she writes a "p" in the air. Once she is sure that everyone has written the correct letter in the air, the teacher can say to the students, "Ok, now turn to your classmate on your right. (teacher demonstrates the right side). on their back, write the letter so that they can feel it. As you write it, say the sound that letter makes." Teacher demonstrates this with a student. Students of all ages, young learners, teens and even adults enjoy and are assisted with a multi sensory letter/sound recognition activity when we ask them to air write and body write!
Sound Sleuths!
Play “sound sleuths!” A sleuth is a detective or someone who searches for something. Have your students search for sounds. This is a good activity to teach and work beginning, middle and end sounds. Put your students in groups of three. Tell your students that you will say a sound and its position in the word. Air write this letter or sound in the air for them to see. Students then have 2 minutes to go around the class and make a list and/or find or point to all the words they can find with that sound in that position. If the students are just asked to find the letter/letter combination with that sound, once they find it, they are to call out "We found it!". Teacher moves to the students to confirm their find and provide the appropriate feedback, such as " Yes, well done! Can you say that sound for me again? Great work!"
Touchable letters (great for preschool and first cycle children and older students who confuse letter sounds and letters in general), Materials: two pieces of paper, glue stick and lentils/rice/scrap paper/ or cotton baton
First make an envelope with one piece of paper. Fold it horizontally so that there is a small flap. Now take a second piece of paper and cut it in four. Now take one of these 4 slips of papers. Have students trace out the letter you are practicing on a piece of paper using a glue stick. Make sure the letter is big and occupies the full size of slip of the paper. Now take some lentils, cotton, rice, small pieces of scrap paper (good for recycling and using up old scraps of paper) or any other material that is “touchable” and will stick to glue.
Tell students to place this material directly on top of the glue. They will see the shape of the letter formed by this material magically appear in a touchable format. Students can then pass their finger over the material and “feel” as well as “see” the shape of the letter. This is a wonderfully kinaesthetic activity that allows all students to succeed in writing and pronouncing the sounds of letters. Of course, this activity can be done with just the vowels, as a lesson on vowels and their sounds and/or with consonant blends (two or more consonants where two sounds are heard "bl"), consonant digraphs (two or consonants where only one sound is heard ie. "sh") or vowel diphthongs (two or more vowels come together and make a sound ie. "ow").
Pipe Cleaner Letters
Give the students a pipe cleaner. Call out the name of a letter and show students how they can make the letter with the pipe cleaner. Once you have done this several times or with older students who have already learned the alphabet but need review and consolidation practice, let them be creative and design their own pipe cleaner letters, You can even create a classroom pipe cleaner alphabet to be displayed for and touched by the students.
I hope these activities inspire you to create and experiment with "learning with letters" -kinds of activities.
Happy teaching,
Theresa
