Focus on Literacy: An Overview

I love reading!  When I was teaching, literacy was one of my passions and a huge focus in my room.  I have taken several master's classes on different literacy components and would love to one day have my master's in literacy. I have done tons of research and incorporated lot of the things I learned into my classroom.  I now use that knowledge in order to help develop Avery's pre-reading skills.

A little background information, current research has shown that effective literacy programs must contain 5 critical components that are referred to as The Big 5.  I thought this chart did a good job of explaining them:

		What it is		How it’s taught
Phonemic Awareness		The ability to notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds in spoken words		·  Focus on sound ·  Identify & blend: o   Onsets (initial consonant or consonant clusters) o   Rimes (vowel and consonants that follow the onset) ·  Segment, blend and manipulate sounds
Phonics		Phonics and word study (decoding strategies) involve the systematic instruction of letter-sound relations to read and spell words accurately and quickly.		· Practice knowledge of letter-sound correspondences · Decode and read words · Manipulate, categorize, and examine the similarities and differences in words
Vocabulary		How children acquire an understanding of new words and concepts		· Provide key experiences · Promote wide reading · Lead discussions through questioning
Fluency		Reading quickly, accurately, and with expression		· Practice reading words automatically (accurately and quickly with little attention or effort) · Increase speed (or rate) of reading while maintaining accuracy · Practice reading with expression
Comprehension		The process that enables readers to make meaning of text, and to communicate meaning about what was read		· Read text aloud · Communicate to others about what they read · Promote thinking and extended discourse through questioning and discussions

Taken from http://faculty.tamu-commerce.edu/jthompson/resources/Five%20Big%20Ideas.doc

Although it is not included in The Big 5, print awareness (learning how to use a book, understanding that spoken words can be written, knowing that we read left to right) is another important early literacy skill.  

Although Avery is only 1 year old, it is never too young to begin working on The Big Five.  A lot of it at this age is just talking to her and modeling things but it still makes a big difference.  I don't want to make this post too long and it would if I went into too much depth on each one, so instead I am going to spend the next few weeks going over each one in more detailed posts.  If you have any specific questions let me know and I will try to address them.  Happy reading!!