1. literacy

2. What is the very first language thing your child ever did?

4. Listen
Speak/ vocalisation/ babbling
Gestures/ smiling/ imitating your gestures
Comprehension
Listening to stories and imitating them
Act out stories and draw them

5. Oral tradition
Nothing was written
Everything was handed down through stories and art

6. The next thing the child does is artistic expression
Then pictograms
Then hieroglyphics
Then alphabet – with modern writing we put stories to sleep
Finally we use reading to wake up the stories

7. Children learn from The bottom up Not the top down
Reading
Writing
Alphabet
Pictogram
Artistic expression
Speak
Listen

8. Children see peripherally, they don’t see on focus
Seeing on focus is called Foveal vision
Foveal vision doesn’t mature until the child is eight years of age
At between seven or eight the frontal lobe of the brain matures and fine motor skills in all the muscles naturally develop
Eye teaming for two dimensional occurs at this stage

9. The dominant eye tracks along the page of writing and the non dominant eye follows the movements exactly and blends into binocular vision
Reading is a motor skill and the eye muscles have to be mature enough to track left to right together
The eye muscles and the brain have to be able to move from seeing in the peripheral to seeing on fucus

10. Children under eight are living in a three dimensional world and are not ready yet developmentally for two dimensional work

11. Give children a rich tapestry of language
Drama
Puppetry
Poetry
Story telling
Reading aloud
Expose them to big words and rich language

12. Children under eight learn through movement, art, music, singing and drama
In order to read they need to learn to visualise the stories and the arts give them the tools to do just that
The brain learns through movement
Through the arts they learn auditory discrimination
They hear how the words sound

13. Working on balance helps to turn on the inner ear which in turn enhances listening skills
Without visual imagery there is no comprehension, children can decode but they cannot read
The body builds the brain which is why children need art, drama, music and PE in order to be successful readers
The stronger their bodies the better their memories

14. Reading comprehension
Auditory discrimination
Training the muscles in the eye

15. Media is an obstacle to academic success
If children are deprived of media they will be more inclined to utilise their inner skills to visualise

16. Analysis – taking things apart
Synthesis – putting things together
Start with a story
Attach meaning
Without meaning reading is pointless, like reading a law book

17. Consonants are taught first always using references to nature

21. Pictures of
consonants are all
grouped together to
make little books
full of stories

26. Vowel sounds represent feeling
Oh ahh ooh
They are the earth sounds

28. Working with the vowels we are learning auditory discrimination

29. orange sox with spots and clocks oh you dandy Mr Knox
keeps his sox
in a pale pink chocolate box
orange sox with spots and clocks
oh you dandy Mr Knox