Answering the question of how to teach literacy to young children, this thoroughly child-oriented handbook compiles fifty practical strategies that will engage young children in reading and writing and encourage their emerging literacy skills. The choice of strategies is firmly grounded in current research into the brain mechanisms that underlie the skill of reading. In addition, the focus on words — hearing, speaking, writing, and reading them — creates an easy-to-use, easy-to-understand approach that builds on young childrens' eagerness to communicate with others concerning their thoughts and ideas about the world they live in.

• A brief introduction to each strategy–Discussing the literacy concept associated with the strategy and what the particular strategy teaches.

  • Sets the stage for students understanding of when, how, and with whom to use each strategy – supplies the background needed to create additional strategies to reinforce each lesson.

• Seven handy checklists at the end of several chapters–Book Handling Behavior, Developing Eye-hand Coordination with Cooking Tools, Early Childhood Writing Behaviors, Independent Skills Checklist, Reading Behaviors Checklist, Speaking Behaviors Checklist, and Caption Writing Progress.

  • Highlight a variety of practical observation vehicles for use with young children, who tend to respond poorly to standardized tests – serve as ready-to-use tools for students' first classrooms and as models for creating additional, effective assessments.

• Lists/descriptions of over 200 children's picture books–Linked to specific strategies.

  • Show how closely learning-to-read is tied to the “sense of story,” and how using picture books helps children develop this sense – encourage prospective teachers to make the most of the excellent childrens' literature on the market.

• Use of materials, content, and activities found in most early childhood classrooms–Blocks, chalk, crayons, computers, cooking, dolls, dramatics, finger paints, puppets, scissors, storytelling, etc.

  • Makes the texts' strategies immediately useful for prospective teachers' first classrooms – allows these fifty ideas to serve as templates for hundreds of additional strategies.

• Photos, children's art, and pupils' actual writing samples–Accompanying each strategy.

  • Offer a genuine picture of each strategy's desired outcome – illustrate real children's authentic literacy efforts and show actual children actively engaged in each strategy.

• Complements the author's core Early Literacy text.
• Provides practical strategies to supplement a core text on early literacy theory and practice--see Beaty/Pratt Early Literacy in Preschool and Kindergarten, 1/e, 2003 (0-13-014828-8)

 1. Aloud, Saying Words.


 2. Alphabet.


 3. Big Books.


 4. Blocks, Building.


 5. Book Buddies.


 6. Book Reading to Children.


 7. Book Tapes, Videotapes.


 8. Chanting.


 9. Chalk, Crayons.


10. Character Dolls, Cutouts.


11. Children Reading Books.


12. Computer.


13. Cooking.


14. Dramatic Play.


15. Early Writing, Scribbling.


16. Easel Painting.


17. Emergent Literacy.


18. Environmental Print.


19. Finger Painting.


20. Flannel Boards.


21. Hammering.


22. Invented Spelling.


23. Journaling.


24. Large Font Words.


25. Learning Centers.


26. Listening.


27. Literacy Bags.


28. Messages.


29. Names.


30. Photos.


31. Pictures, Caption.


32. Predictable Books.


33. Puppets.


34. Rebus Stories.


35. Rhymes, Alliteration.


36. Scissors.


37. Self-Concept.


38. Shared Reading.


39. Singing.


40. Song Storybooks.


41. Sound Words.


42. Story Re-enactments.


43. Storytelling.


44. Syllables.


45. Understanding Reading Progress.


46. Understanding Speaking Progress.


47. Understanding Writing Progress.


48. Webs.


49. Writing Center.


50. Words, Words, Words.

Elementary Reading Methods (PreK-4)  [SUPPLEMENTS]   (Reading & Literacy)
Emergent Literacy  [SUPPLEMENTS]   (Reading & Literacy)

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