Building a Foundation for Preschool Literacy


Book Description

In the second edition of the foundational book in the Preschool Literacy Collection, authors Carol Vukelich and James Christie present the core content and best practice strategies needed to provide preschoolers with effective early literacy instruction. Each chapter explains why the instructional strategies should be used and offers illustrations on how the strategies have been used in early childhood classrooms by outstanding teachers of language and literacy.




Literacy Beginnings


Book Description

"Play and language are both important learning tools for the prekindergarten child. Through play and language, they learn about their world and about themselves. Play and language are also the most important tools for early literacy learning. Think of the young child who takes a memo pad and marker around to family members, 'taking orders' for dinner. Like all emergent readers and writers, this child makes no distinction between play and literacy -- both involve curiosity, excitement, learning, and discovery. In Literacy Beginnings, Gay Su Pinnell and Irene Fountas bring their characteristically rich, comprehensive, and practical insights to the frontier of early literacy. They show you how to tap into young children's curiosity to introduce them to the world of literacy in joyful, engaging ways. Based on their many experiences in real prekindergarten classrooms they demonstrate how to: create a classroom community that is play-based, but that also prepares children for the literary-rich world in which they live, promote constructive learning through inquiry, recognize the language and literacy behaviors and understandings that are appropriate instructional goals for preschoolers, use powerful and playful ways to guide children to learn about letters, sounds, and words, [and] support emergent readers and writers through an array of literacy activities"--Back cover.




Learning to Read and Write


Book Description

Strategies to promote literacy competence




Rah, Rah, Radishes!


Book Description

Know any kids who don’t like veggies? Here is a book that’s sure to change their hungry minds! With a raucous, rhyming text, Rah, Rah, Radishes! celebrates fresh vegetables, nature’s bright colors, and the joy of healthy eating. The book’s interactive spirit encourages kids to join in on the read-aloud fun, and little ones won’t be able to resist the book’s vibrant photographs—they’re a feast for the eyes!




Best Practices in Early Literacy Instruction


Book Description

Bringing together prominent scholars, this book shows how 21st-century research and theory can inform everyday instructional practices in early childhood classrooms (PreK-3). Coverage includes foundational topics such as alphabet learning, phonological awareness, oral language development, and learning to write, as well as cutting-edge topics such as digital literacy, informational texts, and response to intervention. Every chapter features guiding questions; an overview of ideas and findings on the topic at hand; specific suggestions for improving instruction, assessment, and/or the classroom environment; and an engrossing example of the practices in action.







Already Ready


Book Description

From the very first chapter of this informative and inspiring book, a clear picture emerges of how even three- and four-year-olds' capacities for serious authorship can and should be supported. - Lillian G. Katz Coauthor of Young Investigators: The Project Approach in the Early Years By the time they reach preschool or kindergarten, young children are already writers. They don't have much experience, but they're filled with stories to tell and ideas to express - they want to show the world what they know and see. All they need is a nurturing teacher like you to recognize the writer at work within them. All you need to help them is Already Ready. Taking an exciting, new approach to working with our youngest students, Already Ready shows you how, by respecting children as writers, engaged in bookmaking, you can gently nudge them toward a lifetime of joyful writing. Katie Wood Ray and Matt Glover guide you through fundamental concepts of early writing. Providing numerous, helpful examples of early writing - complete with transcriptions - they demonstrate how to: make sense of children's writing and interpret how they represent sounds, ideas, and images see important developmental signs in writers that you can use to help them grow further recognize the thinking young children engage in and discover that it's the same thinking more experienced writers use to craft purposeful, thoughtful pieces. Then Ray and Glover show you how little ones can develop powerful understandings about: texts and their characteristics the writing process what it means to be a writer. You'll learn how to support your writers' quest to make meaning, as they grow their abilities and refine their thinking about writing through teaching strategies such as: reading aloud working side by side with writers sharing children's writing. Writing is just one part of a busy early childhood classroom, but even in little doses, a nurturing approach can work wonders and help children connect the natural writer inside them to a life of expressing themselves on paper. Find that approach, share it with your students, and you'll discover that you don't have to get students ready to write - they're Already Ready.




No Limits to Literacy for Preschool English Learners


Book Description

Combining theory with proven teaching strategies, this resource helps preschool educators produce strong language and literacy outcomes for English learners ages three to five.




PAVEd for Success


Book Description

How can early childhood educators give young children a strong foundation of emergent literacy skills and a head start in social studies and science? The secrets of PAVEd for Success, a road map to school readiness for preschool and kindergarten students. Highly effective and ready to use, this proven program supplement helps early childhood educators explicitly teach vocabulary and oral language skills through lessons that introduce key social studies and science terms. Teachers will start with a complete introduction to the PAVEd for Success approach, with invaluable tips, strategies, and classroom examples to help them enhance young children's emergent literacy. Then they'll get 24 engaging PAVE lesson plans that: are scientifically based; use proven methods to improve students' vocabulary and oral language skills; fit perfectly with RTI; easily supplement existing literacy programs and class routines; teach children about science and social studies concepts; and work with diverse learners including children with disabilities and Enlgish language learners. The included CD-ROM gives teachers easy access to all the printable materials they need for the PAVE lessons: more than 350 vocabulary picture cards, checklists for teachers and supervisors, student tracking and assessment tools, and sample letters to parents. Plus a helpful appendix of crosswalks shows how the PAVE approach aligns with the goals and standards identified by today's most widely respected organizations and programs.




Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children


Book Description

While most children learn to read fairly well, there remain many young Americans whose futures are imperiled because they do not read well enough to meet the demands of our competitive, technology-driven society. This book explores the problem within the context of social, historical, cultural, and biological factors. Recommendations address the identification of groups of children at risk, effective instruction for the preschool and early grades, effective approaches to dialects and bilingualism, the importance of these findings for the professional development of teachers, and gaps that remain in our understanding of how children learn to read. Implications for parents, teachers, schools, communities, the media, and government at all levels are discussed. The book examines the epidemiology of reading problems and introduces the concepts used by experts in the field. In a clear and readable narrative, word identification, comprehension, and other processes in normal reading development are discussed. Against the background of normal progress, Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children examines factors that put children at risk of poor reading. It explores in detail how literacy can be fostered from birth through kindergarten and the primary grades, including evaluation of philosophies, systems, and materials commonly used to teach reading.