Links To Literacy For Little Learners

Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month

This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.

My Students

The effective elements of a comprehensive emergent and beginning level literacy program include multi-modality strategies. To engage preschoolers in activities that are not only fun, but to strategically enhance basic phonological and phonemic awareness can be challenging. Components must be tactile

My students are preschoolers that come to my Special Day Program/Severely Language Impaired with little or no language.

Receptive skills are often intact, however, expressive language is impaired. They are shy at first, fun and willing to please at the get go. It is imperative to have materials to support their early efforts to read and write. Children with learning disabilities specifically must be taught explicitly how to isolate sounds, blend them together and segment words apart into phonemic components without realizing it's actually work! These students attend a typical elementary school and mainstream for developmentally appropriate activities. Experiential learning is an important component of their curriculum. Exposure has been limited to this classroom for most being that this is their first school encounter. Following directions, learning rules, paying attention, focusing, language stimulation and parent training are integral parts of the this preschool program.

My Project

My students need a variety of manipulatives using many modalities such as Circle Time Song Posters, Early Language Concepts Kits, and Word Family Picture Wheels to grasp basic concepts. Numerous hands-on activities and centers that provide independent practice with opportunities to develop their alphabet skills and understanding of the basics is first and foremost. A firm foundation of the alphabet is important to be successful throughout their school career. Research tells us that in order to do so, children require time during the day to practice the letters in isolation particularly for students with delayed language. In order to prepare them for the rigor of kindergarten which has become more academic and less play-oriented, students need numerous manipulatives that are are highly motivating. A center approach is optimal when materials are familiar, but varied often. In this way students generalize knowledge more effectively. Phonological awareness activities of segmenting and blending are highly correlated with beginning reading acquisition. Children who receive explicit instruction in phonemic awareness and phonological awareness show greater gains.

For the majority of poor readers, early intervention programs and prevention that combines phonics, phoneme awareness, spelling, reading fluency and comprehension strategies provided by well-trained teachers can increase their reading attack skills immeasurably.

Special needs students require more intensive preparation and endless sources of manipulatives and materials to internalize information. My students love to learn and are motivated with EVERY activity introduced!