1. Emergent Literacy Scenario
Susan Mislavsky
EDRD 630 – Fall 2010

2. Emergent Literacy vs. Reading Readiness
Gradual process that starts at birth
Requires children to master a set of basic skills before they can learn to read
Promotes literacy through active engagement and real life situations
Encompasses listening, speaking, reading, and writing

3. Key Players

4. Parents Read and reread picture books
Visit local zoos, museums and libraries
Talk about print in everyday settings (street signs, grocery lists, store logos)
Provide material for painting, drawing, writing
Discuss daily routines
Children learn by example. They will more likely be interested in reading if they see their parents interested and enjoy reading.
Snow, Burns, and Griffin (1998) in Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children mention the importance of parents and the interactions they have with their children at home.

5. Teachers Provide a literature-rich environment
Provide activities and materials that interest students
Provide small group instruction to meet the individual needs of students
Create a fun, motivating, and supportive classroom
Provide opportunities for students to interact with each other
Model good story reading and fluency
Create a strong parent-teacher relationship

6. Emergent Literacy
Language Arts Block

7. Overview
Approximately 90 minutes of uninterrupted instructional time that includes:
Morning Meeting
Shared Reading/Read Aloud
Guided Reading
Writers Workshop
Word Study
Literacy Centers
This is a list of suggested activities that should be incorporated into your daily language arts block. All of these activities help foster emergent literacy.

8. Morning Meeting
Morning Meeting is a Responsive Classroom approach that teaches social, emotional and academic growth ("Responsive classroom," 1981)
4 Steps
Greeting
Sharing
Activity
Message

9. Morning Meeting : Greeting
Purpose:
To promote social skills by creating a friendly and safe environment
Ideas:
Students use a variety of ways to greet each other, always maintaining eye contact
Round robin style
Shaking hands
High five
Random drawing of names
Scaffolding Tip:
Write names in different colors for girls and boys or have pictures to represent the initial sound.
Morning meeting is such a great time to expose students to print. It can cover many different purposes and can connect content across the curriculum. Morning meeting is meaningful and everyone is actively involved.
Once students are familiar with their classmates another idea can be placing all of the students’ names on an index card. Place the index card in a pile in the center of the circle. Each student has a chance to pick a card and greet that person. This exposes students to reading their classmates’ names.
During the share portion, the students write their names to sign up, and learn to read their classmates names.
Activity portion is a great opportunity to review a specific skill
Morning message is a daily review of directionality, sentence structure, date, calendar, and weather to just name a few.

10. Morning Meeting: Sharing
Purpose:
Practice oral communication and conversation skills
Students are learning to retell an event in order.
Students are learning the difference between a question and a comment.
Ideas:
Students share about personal experiences
Books read
Movies watched
Weekend activities
After the student shares, he/she says, “Now I’m ready for questions and comments.”

11. Morning Meeting: Activity
Purpose:
To review a specific skill
Rhyme
Alliteration
Sound matching
Syllable segmentation
Blending
Ideas:
Recite songs and poems
Category Snap
Group sits in a circle
Leader starts a rhythm using a knee slap, hand slap, and/or finger snaps
Leader announces a category
Words that begin with “b”
Words that rhyme with “cat”
Next person in the circle must be ready to name a word that fits with the category
The play continues around the circle
Once a word has been named, it cannot be used again
Added Bonus:
A great opportunity to review phonological awareness

12. Morning Meeting: Message
Purpose:
To reinforce basic reading skills
Directionality
Sight word knowledge
Blends
Fluency
Ideas:
Have a “magic wand” for a volunteer to point to each word
Students can circle blends, sight words, etc.
Echo or choral reading
Read aloud
Discuss corrections, patterns, skills, etc.
Should be interactive
Children must learn letter-sound correspondences and must have plenty of experience in applying letter-sound knowledge to the context of reading and writing. (Invernizzi, 2003)

13. Shared Reading/Read Aloud
Purpose:
To provide students the chance to actively engage in reading
Ideas:
Readers Theater
Interactive Storybook Reading (Roskos, Christie, & Richgels, 2002)
Have students act out the events while you read
Book: “Mrs. Wishy Washy”
Student roles: Mrs. Wishy Washy, pig, cow, duck
John Dewey believed that education should engage and broaden experiences.
Through the engaged learning theory, individuals should have a direct role to play in their literacy. Students are actively participating.

14. Class with “mud” on their faces after acting out Mrs. Wishy Washy.

15. Guided Reading Purpose: To teach various reading skills
Beginning and ending sounds
Syllables
Rhyming
Blending
Sight Words
Making sure the students feel confident about reading
Ideas:
Begin with a picture walk
Give each student a popsicle with an eye at one end to use as their pointer
Guide students by using context, visual, and structure cues with instructional level text to generate meaning

16. Writers Workshop Purpose: To teach writing skills Letter formation
Directionality
Sentence structure
Ideas:
Provide materials for students to write their own sentences and/or stories
Draw and label
The “Flying Pencil”
Teacher starts off the story with a beginning sentence
Each student has a turn to dictate one sentence while the teacher writes.
Once sentences are typed out on to individual pages, students can illustrate the page that contains their sentence.
A copy can be placed in the classroom library and sent home for students to practice.

17. Word Study Purpose: To identify different letters
Uppercase vs. lowercase
Different fonts
To make connections between spoken sound and their corresponding letter and/or blend
Recognize sight words
Ideas:
Have students cut out specific letters from magazines, newspapers, menus etc.
Picture sorts
Sight word Bingo
Read Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten
Revisit the story as each group of initial sounds is reviewed to find the names of Miss Bindergarten’s students and other words associated with each letter.
(Johnston, Bear, Invernizzi, & Templeton, 2009)

18. Literacy Centers
Purpose:
To independently and meaningfully practice various literacy skills with enjoyable materials
Letter formation
Handwriting
Sound-symbol relationships
Various forms of print
Ideas:
Read and/or make ABC books
Use magnetic letters to create words
Use alphabet puzzles
Use menus and grocery lists for make-believe play
Form letters, words, and names with clay and/or paint
These activities fall under the Behaviorist approach. Students are practicing sound-symbol relationships, letter formation, handwriting, and are exposed to print with familiar sight words.
Through the psycholinguistic approach, students are exploring print independently for pleasure.
Alphabet books that feature alliteration offer opportunities for letter reading and other alphabet activities. When choosing alphabet books, it is important to look for clear examples of each beginning sound. (Invernizzi, 2003)

19. "Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn
"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." - Benjamin Franklin
Students need to be active participants prior to entering school to develop reading and writing skills. It’s important to maintain that active participation all throughout kindergarten to ensure the emergent literacy process is continued.

20. References
Responsive classroom. (1981). Retrieved from
Roskos, K, Christie, J, & Richgels, D. (2002). The essentials of early literacy instruction. Retrieved from
Johnston, F, Bear, D, Invernizzi, M, & Templeton, S. (2009). Word sorts for letter name - alphabetic spellers. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Invernizzi, M. (Ed.). (2003). Concepts, sounds, and the abcs: a diet for a very young reader. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.