ENVIRONMENTAL PRINT
Environmental Print is everywhere, and being able to recognize and read it is one of the beginning stages of literacy development. Essentially, environmental print is the letters, words, numbers, and even colors found in logos and signs of products, stores, and street signs such as Barbie, McDonalds, and STOP. There is an innumerable amount of opportunities that provide (emerging) readers with the opportunity to interact with various forms of print in the environment around them. As adults, it can be easy to look over the importance of a child's use of environmental print, but it truly is the first type of print a child learns to read.
Keeping this in mind, there are many things we can do inside and out of the classroom to engage our children in the relevant realm of reading. Our classroom will practice use of it in multiple ways including:
-Classroom discussions of favorite toys and other brands
-Classroom activities such as "Dine-in Day" where we turn the classroom into a restaurant that includes menus, recipes, and invites to families and other participating classrooms!
REMEMBER: Environmental Print is just one of the many ways we can instill confidence in our young children. Using contextual cues of things that excite them, we are essentially infusing enthusiasm into those things they were already excited about--but now with a literary take!
When this happens, children will inevitably learn literacy skills at a swift pace; thus, transitioning them into the use of "school" print more easily as well.
READ ON CHILDREN AND PARENTS! :)
The idea of transforming the classroom into a restaurant is a great way to incorporate environmental print in the classroom. It is very customizable as well, the classroom can become a bus or train station, a lemonade stand, basically anything you want it to be! If it gets the kids excited, their literacy skills will be booming in no time. :)
ReplyDeleteVery good post and I like how you talked about instilling confidence. Confidence is a tool to not only achieving a goal, but also making that task easier. For example a mom asks where the Wendys is, the child sees the Wendys sign, points it out, and receives positive reinforcement. By letting the child know they got something correct, he/she will hopefully realize that attempting something leads to something good. I feel moments like that are important to instilling confidence to a child and these moments should be encouraged.
ReplyDeleteClassroom discussion is huge! I think that giving the children a chance to talk about what they already know would be very helpful. This would give you insight into their previous knowledge and hopefully give them a chance to open up in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteThe dine-in day is such a phenomenal idea and it builds so much on what we have talked about in all of our classes how play is the best way for young children to learn. Through this activities, the students will most likely get very excited to have their own roles in the scenario and use their knowledge of symbols to enhance the play experience.
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