Ways to promote literacy: 8+ Ways to Support Language & Literacy Development in Early Childhood

8+ Ways to Support Language & Literacy Development in Early Childhood

Best Practices

Read Time:
5 minutes

Teaching Strategies

August 3, 2021

It’s never too early to nurture children’s development of language and literacy skills. Even at a very young age, experiencing different genres of books, hearing stories from the adults who care about them, and exploring books alone or with peers helps them learn how to listen to and understand language and how to share their thoughts, ideas, and feelings.

Below we highlight eight ways to support language and literacy skills development in your own early childhood classroom.

1. Capture children’s interest before you read.
   Have children sitting on the edge of their seats before the story even begins! Before your next read-aloud, take a moment to get children interested by providing an exciting overview of the story they’re about to hear. Not sure what this looks like? Below, Vice Chair of the Board Kai-leé Berke provides a few examples so you can see this technique in action.
   
2. Introduce vocabulary during a read-aloud.
   Select a few words to highlight and define for children before you begin the read-aloud. Choose words that are important to understanding the meaning of the story and then define the words as you read. You can define words during a read-aloud by pointing out part of an illustration that shows the meaning of a word, showing facial expressions or moving your body in a way that provides explanation, or giving a brief definition.
3. Share the see-show-say strategy with families.
   See-show-say is an easy, 3-part strategy that you can share with families for conducting read-alouds at home. In the below video, Breeyn Mack demonstrates how adults can invite children to see, show, and say what they’re experiencing in the story.
   
4. Highlight children’s favorite books.
   Highlighting children’s favorite books during read-aloud time is a great way to get them engaged and keep their attention. Encourage children to talk about their favorite books and share their recommendations with others. Keep sticky notes and pencils in the Library area so children can identify their favorite books. Ask them to write their name on the sticky note and then place it inside the book’s cover; then, at read-aloud time, you can point out that this book is Charlie or Lia’s favorite.
5. Establish read-aloud routines.
   Young children thrive with consistent, predictable routines, so it’s important to establish regular times for reading. We recommend scheduling time for read-alouds at least twice a day.
6. Read in small groups.
   To get the most literacy learning out of a read-aloud experience, make sure you take the time to read to children in small groups. Research shows that children who hear stories in small-group settings develop stronger comprehension skills, ask and answer more questions, and comment more on the text. So while you’re probably already reading aloud to large groups of children, try to find time for these small-group interactions, too!
7. Support children who are learning two languages.
   To support dual-language learners, include books and recorded readings in children’s first languages and wordless books in your classroom book collection. Whenever you can, read the story in the child’s first language before reading in English.
   
8. Start early! Read with infants and toddlers.
   Make reading physically interactive by inviting children to hold the book and turn the pages, if they are physically able, or offering them a toy to hold while you’re reading. Focus their attention by pointing to and naming the things in the pictures. And be prepared to read the same books over and over again—very young children thrive on routine and repetition.

Below, Natalie demonstrates what a read-aloud could look like in a real classroom.

To learn more about using read-alouds in your classroom, view our video series and additional resources for proper read-aloud techniques here.

Read-Alouds can happen at home and at school, with children of all ages. Our Digital Children’s Library makes books available, digitally, to children and families at all time. Each book can be read independently or with narration.

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Six Guiding Principles to Help Classroom Teachers Boost Student Literacy

We recently talked with Dr. Barbara Steckel, Reading Specialist program director and professor in literacy and reading, who shared some ideas on how you can enrich your classroom and motivate your students.

1. Establish a culture that supports literacy.

Get to know your students, including their interests, their home and community, and their social and cultural experiences.

Believe that every student is a reader. Support and celebrate every child’s effort to develop reading muscles and increase reading stamina. Let them know you believe in them.

Show students how valuable books are, sharing ideas and working together to make meaning.

Highlight words, words, words. Make vocabulary learning fun. Feature new words every week and recognize students who use them in new and interesting ways. We can’t teach every word, but we can teach word awareness and the richness of vocabulary. We can pepper our own speech with mature, descriptive, and interesting words.

2. Explicitly teach skills.

Phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency are foundations for proficiency. Older students benefit from learning structural analysis, such as common prefixes and suffixes and rules for dividing longer words into syllables. All these are essential to reading and understanding. 

The endgame is the application of skills to connected text.  Basic skills are the foundation, but they are only pathways to the goal of developing proficiently engaged readers and critical thinkers.

Create small reading groups, organized according to students’ needs, to support the development of skills and strategies to increase student competency. Meet several times a week, using books and materials that are at the students’ instructional level—meaning the text is a bit too difficult for reading independently, but just right with the support of a teacher.

3. Create a compelling classroom library for independent reading.

Collect books and materials that will appeal to the interests and proficiencies of your students. Place the classroom library in full view and within reach of your students.

Allow your readers to choose books they want to read during independent reading time and at home.

Sort books according to genre, interest categories, or authors as a way to help students make good selections based upon their interests. Level books according to difficulty, but don’t restrict students to a level for independent reading. Interest, life experience, and motivation can be strong factors in determining text complexity. Make sure students know how the books are organized.

Teach students how to select books based on personal interests, as well as challenges within the book.  Students can first peruse the front and back book covers. Show them how to scan the overall organization and look at illustrations. Does the book seem reasonably appealing?  If so, the next step is to select a page or two to see if the student can read most of words without assistance. A simple guideline is about 95% accuracy or better for under grade four and 97% accuracy for grades four and older.

4. Confer with students individually during independent reading time.

Listen to the student read a small passage, noticing patterns in word identification and fluency and skills such as breaking words into syllables, phrasing, knowledge of vocabulary, and comprehension.

Coach students according to their individual needs. Encourage talking about the book—the characters, the plot, the vocabulary–what does the student find most compelling about the text?

Use individual reading conferences as a rich source of formative assessment data. Keep track of each student’s development as a reader over time and use this information when planning lessons or selecting materials. It’s also valuable data to share and discuss at parent-teacher-student conferences.

5. Talk about books.

Teacher book talks are an engaging way to motivate readers. A book talk is brief. It’s a way for you to feature a book that you love and that you think your students would love, too. Say just enough to capture interest and pull your students into the plot. Show a great illustration or read a paragraph aloud to demonstrate how the author uses language. Put the book out on your display table and watch it disappear!

Have students talk about books, too. Book clubs can be inspiring. A group of 4-6 students meet several times to discuss a book they are all reading. They share reactions, question one another, and ultimately build deeper comprehension as a result of their  discussions. 

What are you reading and advocating for? Bring your books, magazines, editorials, and journals into class. Share your favorite websites, podcast, and books on tape. Demonstrate that you are a lifelong reader, writer, and listener. Tell students what you like most about what you’re currently reading or listening to. What is your favorite time to read, write, or listen; how does reading and writing help you, relax you, provide enjoyment, and make a positive impact on your life? 

6. Write about books.

Have students write about books in journals. Students can keep a response journal to record their thoughts about the books they read. Response journals can take many forms, but a you could use a simple format with questions that can apply to many different books and at any point in the reading process. Examples of questions or prompts are: what personal connections do you make with the characters or events, what questions would you ask classmates who are reading this book, what did you learn?

Readers theater is an engaging way to develop reading fluency. Students reread and practice their assigned parts in a script to get ready for a fluent and expressive performance. Some students may want to write the simple scripts for their own performances as an extension activity after reading.

Extend comprehension with themes that are relevant to your students. Students can select an important theme or message from a text and work with their classmates to promote, persuade, or advocate for a cause like social or climate justice. Students can use language, artistic expression, and a wide variety of digital tools to become advocates for a cause that began in the virtual or real pages of a text.

Seven effective ways to improve spelling and learn how to write without mistakes

November 17, 2020

How many wonderful careers did not work out, how many opportunities were missed due to elementary illiteracy! Do you think a serious investor will accept an “interesting offer” about joint activities? And what will happen to an employee who approved outdoor advertising with an obvious mistake that the whole city is now discussing? Will the girl agree to go on a date? If you feel that spelling is not your forte, we offer several ways to tighten it up.

If you don’t have time to sit over textbooks, you can upgrade your knowledge using an online program. As the saying goes, in war all means are good.

Take the course

1. Read quality literature

We write correctly not because we remember the rules every time, but because we have seen most words hundreds of times and remember their spelling. Therefore, reading fiction has always been considered the best way to “pump” spelling skills. During this process, visual memory develops, that is, the brain simply remembers what a particular word looks like and will not let you make a mistake, even if you do not remember the spelling rules. But you need to read high-quality books, and not correspondence in a messenger or forums and it is not clear whose texts are on the Internet – that’s where you run the risk of stuffing your head with all the mistakes that are in the Russian language. It is desirable to read from early childhood. This method is also good because it not only improves literacy, but also enriches vocabulary.

2. Rewrite texts

You can’t learn to skate without going out on the ice. In the same way, reading is not enough for literate writing. Make it a rule to dedicate 15-20 minutes a day to copying texts from fiction or non-fiction books. It is better to write with a pen – this is how not only visual, but also mechanical memory will work. Usually two or three months of classes is enough to bring the spelling up to a decent level.

3. Write dictations

Writing from dictation develops phonemic awareness and teaches you to identify erroneous places. Stumbled, so you need to check. In the age of total computerization, this can be done in a matter of seconds, the main thing is to develop a spelling flair in yourself, and dictations just contribute to this. After the dictation, do a full analysis of your mistakes, and you will see that with each new text there will be less and less of them.

4. Repeat the rules

No, you don’t need to memorize them. You are still not in school. It is enough to read the rule carefully, understand it, analyze it with examples and practice a little in writing words with this spelling. Ideally, you need to repeat one new rule every day, but taking into account employment at work, at home, you can limit yourself to 2-3 classes per week. Set aside a few days for complex or voluminous rules to consolidate what you have learned. You can study according to school textbooks or use special books where the material is summarized and systematized. For example, Dietmar Rosenthal’s textbook “Russian language” or the manual of the same author “Please write correctly!”.

5. Watch video lessons and lectures

If you perceive visual information better, video lessons and popular science lectures on the Russian language, of which there are a great many on the Internet, will be a good help. You can find lessons on a specific spelling, for example, about “tsya” and “tsya”, doubled “nn” in participles, continuous and separate spelling of different parts of speech. For those who want to improve not only literacy, but also stylistics, we recommend listening to lectures by well-known popularizers of the Russian language Irina Levontina, Anna Wall, Marina Koroleva. It will be not only informative, but also very interesting.

6. Re-read and edit

Are you used to writing “thank you”, “thank you” in instant messengers? If you want to increase literacy, it is better to refuse this method of communication, because your brain gets confused and at the wrong moment can slip an erroneous option. Write literate messages and, before pressing Enter, reread them, correct errors. If in doubt about the spelling of a word, google it, if you don’t know where to put a comma, break this piece of text into separate sentences. This skill is especially important when writing business letters. It won’t take long to skim through the text again, and your reputation will not suffer.

7. Study with a tutor or take online courses

In any business, a system is important. If you feel that regular self-education is not for you, study with a tutor. This method is especially effective when the gaps in spelling are too large or they need to be eliminated in a short time. A personal teacher will build an individual training program, help you quickly and accurately deal with the main problems. At the same time, it will be that external stimulus that will not let you go the distance. Note that classes with a tutor are not cheap. If you can’t afford them, instead of a real teacher, you can use the services of a virtual one on one of the specialized Internet platforms.

For example, you can take an express program at Smart University online school. If you just need to improve your written language, choose the Spelling for All course, or if you want to plunge into the language environment a little deeper, sign up for the Competent Blogger course. The programs consist of short lessons, videos, testing tests. You can study at Smart University online via a computer or smartphone. You can find express programs in your personal account on the website in the “Courses without a teacher” section by logging in using your phone number. And remember, it’s never too late to learn! 9Ol000 literacy – “a means of expanding personal freedoms and opportunities, as well as a tool for developing human potential” ? It is with this definition that the RIA Novosti literacy test precedes.

The definition is still something, but you can hardly argue with it. An illiterate copywriter is in principle possible, although extremely rare.

However, literacy superheroes are also rare among copywriters. Rather, we can talk about authors who are more or less indifferent to literacy issues.

But not only copywriters should be literate. Despite the fact that videos, pictures, infographics are becoming more and more popular, active Internet users write something every day. And, of course, it will be better if what comes out from under your keyboard is understandable to everyone you are addressing.

Fortunately, there are very simple ways to increase literacy. Choose from this magnificent seven the methods that suit you.

Method No. 0. Write dictations, take courses

Dictation not only checks the level of literacy, but also improves it. However, this method, like taking courses or classes with a tutor, for the most part causes rejection. Many will say: “We studied and studied at school, and now we also write dictations after school.” Therefore, we believe that this method is zero and only professionals use it.

For example, the copywriters of our Bureau have already written the dictation, and have repeated and consolidated the most difficult rules at the Intensive Russian Language Workshop, which took place in the summer.

Method No. 1. Read books and look in dictionaries

Psychologists have been studying the connection between reading and writing for a long time. One of their conclusions speaks in favor of the fact that reading is a must.

To write correctly, it is not enough to know the rules. It is necessary to constantly accumulate “images of words with traditional spellings.” And this can only be done while reading.

Technique #2: Write and Edit

Another immutable rule of literacy is to learn the rules in the meaningful context of speech. That is, it is better not to know the rules and write than to know all the rules by heart, but not to write.

What is written needs to be edited. But it is not necessary to edit only your texts. Searching for errors in “foreign” texts, in books and magazines increases spelling vigilance.

Method No. 3. Spelling reading

Perhaps someone got sick of spelling while still at school. We were taught to speak out loud and to ourselves every word we read, to dictate to ourselves when you write.

If normal reading, in which we do not have to pronounce every word, helps to accumulate images of words through visual memory, then spelling reading also uses speech-motor memory for the same purpose: to save word images that correspond to the spelling norm.

Method number 4. Copy and rewrite

Regular copying also helps in improving the literacy of writing. However, in order for this lesson to be meaningful, it is better to take notes.

Cheating gives greater efficiency if you arm yourself with a ballpoint pen and a notebook. But you can also transfer this lesson to a computer, especially when mastering the touch typing method.

If you wish, you can use the following algorithm:

1. Read the sentence.

2. Repeat it from memory.

3. Determine which spellings are found in the sentence.

4. Read it spelling and repeat from memory, pronouncing all the sounds.

5. Close the text and write down the sentence.

6. Test yourself on the text.

Method No. 5. Maintain a style sheet

American writer Jen Yager suggests this method in her book “No Writers Are Born. How to Write Successful Texts – From Business Letters to Books and Articles”.

The style sheet helps improve the quality of your writing. Its essence is quite simple. The page is divided into two columns. In the left column we write out all the words in which we often make mistakes. Everything related to grammar and the use of words falls into the right column.

Method No. 6. Play word games and draw

To remember the spelling of a word/rule in which you constantly make a mistake, you can draw the word or rule. How you do it – depends only on your imagination.

To improve literacy, it is also useful to solve charades and puzzles, crosswords and anagrams.

There are a lot of word games. And for sure everyone played in them as a child.

Method No. 7. Buy a textbook and complete all exercises

Another way that is reminiscent of school days and can cause dislike. But we couldn’t help mentioning it. Because this method is one of the most effective.

It’s one thing when you have to open a textbook and do some assignments almost every day. It is quite another thing when you perform the same exercises on your own initiative.