Language Rich Environment

Children are able to learn language systems without conscious efforts as they speak and listen to communicate and interpret meaning. Children learn language as they interact with responsive adults and peers, and as they experience language use in meaningful contexts. In the process of acquiring language, children learn:

• Phonology—the sounds of their home language

• Vocabulary—words and word meaning

• Grammar—the rules for forming sentences that make sense

• Social uses of language—how to have a conservation, how to tell a story, how to be polite, etc.

Talking

Reading

Writing

• Talk with children about their daily experiences

• Read a story about a picture the child has drawn

• Draw pictures about every day life or an adventure

• Ask children questions about objects, events and relations

• Read and share stories together and talk about them

• Scribble and make letters

• Make up stories and poems

• Look at pictures, signs, labels and other environmental print together and discuss each

• Write letters to people you both know and read them together

• Play rhyming games

• Discuss letters and words

• Write down a story a child tells you and read it together

• Sing songs and dance together

• Talk about words and what they mean; have fun with words

• Read nursery rhymes, riddles, songs & poems together

• Hang the child’s writing where s/he can see it and talk about it often

• There are charts everywhere. The lunch chart, the attendance chart, the daily schedule; all are displayed for the children to see and use.

• Student art projects are widely displayed in the room. Teachers have labeled various objects and have written titles on them.

• There are book corners with comfortable places to sit where young children can choose their own book to look at by themselves or with a friend.

•  The classroom has bilingual labels with words and pictures everywhere so that students constantly connect written language with the things they represent.

• There are lots of writing materials for children to use: paper, makers, crayons.

• Pictures and posters are colorful and attractive to young children.

• Children play games and do activities that encourage language with peers and adults.

• Children sing and play musical instruments.

• Children do science projects and engage in imaginative play.

• Teachers ask the children to observe, to hypothesize and to conclude. “What do you think will happen?” “What happened then?” “Why do you like that?”

• Teachers and parents talk to and with children about literacy. They discuss how to use materials in the classroom such read a book to your doll or make a shopping list.

Alphabetic Knowledge

Alphabetic Knowledge is simply the ability to name letters. Alphabetic knowledge has been shown by research to be a predictor of early reading success in school.

Children acquire alphabetic knowledge beginning with naming the letter names. They then begin to learn the letter shapes, and finally the sounds of letters. Early childhood programs can teach letter names by singing songs such as the Alphabet Song, by reciting rhymes and by talking about and writing letters.

Early childhood curricula, such as The Letter People, provide activities and materials to encourage alphabetic knowledge. Play activities in the early childhood education classroom that encourage alphabetic knowledge include learning letter shapes when children play with blocks, plastic letters, and alphabet books. Young children should learn to identify, name, and eventually write both upper case and lower case versions of each letter.

Phonological Awareness simply refers to the child's understanding that spoken words are made up of sounds. Phonological awareness has also been shown to be a predictor of early reading success in school. Phonological awareness is one of the building blocks to reading. For young children, phonological awareness activities can involve work with alliteration and rhymes.

As we know, the most important thing that parents and teachers can do to help a child learn to read is to read to the child on a regular basis from infancy. Books with rhymes and books with alliteration (words all begin with the same sound) especially contribute to phonological awareness.