Literacy

Phonemic awareness is the recognition that words are made up of individual sounds and the ability to manipulate sounds. Phonemic awareness develops through a series of stages during which children understand that language is made up of words, which are made up of syllables, that are made up of phonemes (or individual sounds). Phonemic awareness is an oral ability, enabling children to identify rhyming words, identify words that begin the same, and identify the individual sounds in words. Meaningful, interactive games and activities give children the best practice in phonemic awareness.

In class, I have been engaging the students in rhyming and listening activities. Rhyming and listening activities help children develop stronger auditory discrimination and awareness. These activities give children exposure to and experience with hearing, identifying and creating words that rhyme.

In October, when a student was the Special Helper, he/she was asked to choose from a collection of objects - two objects that rhyme. The students placed the objects in the Special Helper bag. During our class meeting, the student took one item out of the bag and the class was asked to try to guess what the other object in the bag was. 

Nursery rhymes, Dr. Seuss books and many picture books are great sources for rhyme. At home, when you read books written in rhyme, ask your child to help you finish each phrase with the rhyming word. When you play rhyming games, allow your child to make up nonsense words if he/she can't think of 'real' words that rhyme.

In our Jolly Phonics program, each week, we are focusing on two letters and their sounds and focusing on identifying the beginning sound of various objects. In class, we review the letters and sounds by playing Jolly Jump Up. I recently sent home Jolly Phonics cards and instructions on how you can review the letter sounds and actions and play Jolly Jump Up at home. 

I use the Handwriting Without Tears Program to teach the students how to print letters and numbers.  Handwriting Without Tears is an award winning and research based program that teaches children the skills required for printing. The goal of the program is to make legible and fluent printing an automatic skill for all students. The play-based multi-sensory activities: are developmentally appropriate for Kindergarten students, help young children learn correct letter formation, address children's diverse learning styles (visual, tactile, auditory, kinesthetic) and consistently use the same motor patterns and verbal cues. The students have been practicing printing their names and two letters each week. 

The students have been learning the Kindergarten sight words during the past few months. Each week we review the sight words by:

• Using flash cards
• Going on word hunts to find sight words in our morning message and then reading the morning message
• Reading a mini book that focuses on our sight words

Many students have been inspired to write during the past few months for various purposes. The students are using various classroom resources (name cards, word wall, sight word cards, class alphabet, Jolly Phonics page) and their knowledge of letters, sounds, and sight words to write:

• Their friends names
• Letters to the Fairies and Gnome
• Their own books
• Labels and signs for our co-created Drama Centres (McDonald's & Tim Hortons)
• Random Acts of Kindness cards
• Anti-bullying shirts
• Letters to our classroom Elf (Twinkler) and to Santa