Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Children Know Reading is Everywhere
Environmental Print is a fancy term for defining the types of reading that adults, and children, find throughout the day. It encompasses food labels, posters, street signs, restaurant signs, t-shirts, and more. Children can easily identify many examples of Environmental Print, McDonald, Disney, and Tony the Tiger. The children see these images, which includes the print, and can identify the names of the object. They are reading! Connecting students with the Environmental Prints they already know and recognize with the print of the object solidifies reading skills that many of the children already have. A project that I plan on making for my students, and suggest for other preschool classrooms, is an Environmental Print book. Here, I will include 3-D identifiable objects, mounted pictures of recognizes logos and pictures of commonly seen Environmental Print. With this book, I can bring it into a classroom and ask the students to read the labels or signs to me. With some luck, each student will recognize a few of the prints, and we can focus on these words. What an interesting concept that a child can identify the exact name of the object before understanding the "make-up" of the word. This type of book allows teachers an inlet into the intelligent and memory-keeping minds of our children. With this, hopefully we can spend some quality time with each student, helping them to read the picture, image, and eventually match the words to the already identified logo.
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I love the idea of having an Environmental Print book within your classroom. I think this will help connect what students are learning at home to what they are learning at school. This sounds like a fun reading activity.
ReplyDeleteThis post was a constructive, planned-out description. Good direction! You can tell that youre passionate and serious about having families and the children getting the most out of their literacy development!
ReplyDeleteThis is a great idea of an activity for a preschool classroom. You could even ask children to help you compile images and labels to put the book together. What a great activity for connecting with the students!
ReplyDeleteMaking connections with familiar words and symbols that children know from day to day life with concepts is a great way to start children on the road to reading. Simply making these connections and allowing them to understand that letters and words actually define the familiar objects and pictures that they see is a part of literacy and is important to work on with them even before they start schooling.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, creating environmental print book is a great idea and activity. While children are making that, as well as that they enjoy doing that and also they can see the print words one more time. I also think children's literacy is everywhere and teachers can use them anytime in appropriate ways!
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