I read over the emails that go out to our classes. On Friday Shelly Todd sent a wonderful email to the 4/5 year old Enrichment class. While she goes into detail about their whole day, the part I want to share is about their circle time. It shows very well how children learn about letters and reading through environmental print, seeing words written (demonstrative writing) and reading to children. Here is this portion of her email.
We had another spectacular day today in Enrichment. I really do mean that… your children tell us that they’re having fun! Today we read the book If You Give a Pig a Pancake. One of the children even said, “hey, pig and pancake both start with ‘p’!” Yep, your children are rock star learners!
Before we read the book, we shared what we like to put on our pancakes.
It was fun to listen to the children share their ideas. While I was writing the words and we were reading them, many children made observations about what they saw, “Brody, Brooke, and Warren all have ‘r’ in them!” Your children are recognizing words and letters and this is so wonderful for their beginning reader brains!
Letter identification, recognizing words, reading and writing is developmental and quite often will happen naturally as children are surrounded with text and literature! We hope you know that while your child is not doing flash cards and worksheets, he/she is learning in the most effective way: through rich experiences!
Aldersgate Preschool 