For the Love of Literacy

Within our kindergarten classroom, our goal is to provide a balanced literacy program. We focus on creating learning groups and activities to support each individual. Whole group activities are integrated into the day as well as small group, paired, and individual literacy learning experiences.

On a daily basis authentic texts are embedded into our kindergarten program through interactive read alouds. Children become engaged in the story by sharing predictions, connections, and information about the story's content.

 

Share reading also happens in the large group through songs, poems, big books. Some examples of the poems, songs, and stories we have been working on are below.

Guided reading is integrated into the kindergarten program through the creation of mini booklets. Children act as the illustrators in the story and finalize the pictures. The class practices the story all together to learn the pattern of the text. Then, the children practice reading the booklet with their peers. They use their pointer finger to guide them along throughout the story. Together students work in small groups to practice reading and pre reading strategies like using picture clues and noticing familiar words.

 

Independent reading happens twice daily within the class. In the morning children enter the class and chose a book from the bookshelf. They review the story by looking at the pictures, noticing familiar words, and practice flipping the pages. Some of the students discuss the story with their peers and others work on their own to create their own story based on the pictures. This is the beginning development of a fundamental life skill. Further, reading daily encourages children to discover their passion for reading.

 

 

Guided Writing has been modeled through the creation of anchor charts and will be further introduced to the children through daily messages on the white board. We will begin this by writing clues about who the special helper is. At other times we will write about the day and the special activates planned. Together we will read the message and modeling writing concepts, such as capital and lower case letters, periods and exclamation marks.

 

 

Shared writing will also be introduced as the year progresses through daily messages and whole group experiences. When we create anchor charts children will have the opportunity to come up and sound out their words. They will also help in writing stories and messages as we collaborate and share ideas on a topic.
 

In kindergarten children communicate by talking, listening, and speaking for a variety of purposes and in a variety of contexts. They are able to comprehended and demonstrate an awareness of written materials. Through various hands on experiences children are developing reading and writing strategies to make sense of a variety of written materials and share their ideas. By modeling and sharing in the various literacy experiences children become stimulated by the learning tasks. Intriguing literacy materials intrinsically motivate the children to explore new tasks!