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Here is what you might see when you enter my classroom: ravished interpretations of nursery rhymes, Play-Doh turning into letters and 4-year-old children who act the adventures of a very hungry caterpillar.
Inasmuch as Transitioning kindergarten teacher in Oakland, California, my job is to prepare the youngest learners for the school as part of California universal public preschool program. I teach my students how to get up when they fall, how to open a cardboard of milk without incident and how to master the skills they will need to become readers. The nursery rhymes to teach phonological consciousness Thus, students can recognize and manipulate the spoken parts of words. Play-do to teach phonic They therefore understand the relationship between letters and sounds. The dramatic game to teach understanding, because the game of stories can help children understand them better.
For me, this early literacy work is an integral part of the current literacy crisis. In CaliforniaHalf of all students in public schools read the level lower than a level. NationallyTwo of the three elementary schoolchildren are read below the school level. THE consequences are of great scale, from secondary graduation rates to future income to future meetings with the criminal justice system.
In order for students to become successful readers, they need teaching based on Reading science – Teaching of direct, explicit and systemic courses Phonemic, phonic, mastery, vocabulary and understanding of reading. Children should master these skills in short years between kindergarten and when they are seated for standardized third -year assessments, despite the fact that many students start at school with exposure to limited literacy or require more time to practice these skills.
But what happens if instead of starting our literacy efforts in kindergarten and the first year, we started this work in early childhood classrooms? What would it be like working with early childhood educators to integrate and align literacy efforts so that all students are set up to succeed?
In my class, I saw how effective the work of early literacy is because the brain in the early years is a sponge. For example, years ago, I taught my students the ballad “I know where I am” of the musical “Hairspray” for our assembly of the month in the history of blacks, and they picked it up Almost instantly, singing her for weeks after our performance. Each new line of words came with a new vocabulary that I defined, then I started using in our class.
And thank you kinesthetic nature of early childhood education, young children best experience literacy through movement, which is also research. My 4 -year -old children love playing “Clap, Stomp, Jump”, where we segm the syllables in our names and associate them with actions. They love it because they can move and be noisy. I love it because it strengthens phonological consciousness, so they are better able to manipulate sounds. A total approach to physical response to literacy is adapted to development for the first years and prepares students for future success by strengthening their reading skills early.
Finally, because early childhood classrooms focus on creativity, students are initiated to the joy of reading pleasure. In my class, phonetics looks like children who use fingers paintings to write their names with rainbow colors, by sounding letters to strengthen the relationship between letters and sounds.
I love to engage my transition children’s gardens in literacy. But we need high quality professional development at the intersection of education and literacy of early childhood. I attended conferences organized by the Oakland Literacy Coalition and training by Learning facilitators seeds This provided me with strategies, activities and lessons aligned with the science of reading to help my younger students to succeed. I want all childhood educators to have access to these resources, from Head Start teachers to family childcare providers to remain caregivers. Children in all preschool contexts should have fundamental literacy experiences.
Early childhood educators must also be partners in the development of education policies and initiatives. I participated in teaching teaching team meetings in my school and I attended meetings at the county level, which both helped me teach the skills in early literacy with K- objectives 12 most important in mind. All students should work towards the same objectives, whatever their place in the education system. Examples like Mississippi And New Jersey Show that alignment and investment in early childhood education lead to an improvement in reading results.
Here is what you might see when you enter my class: my students fall in love with letters, words and books, as I did once. I put them there thanks to a literacy work which shows them the magic of reading and prepares them to be strong and prosperous readers for the years to come. For my students and I, this work begins now. We just look like a game.
Alicia Simba is a living public teacher and works in Oakland, California. She is a scholarship holder in 2024-25 Teach more more, and her writing was published in Teen Vogue, Slate, Blavity, and more.