A Literacy Journey...

Looking at letters and symbols

For the last two months, Lachlan has been fascinated with letters. I would say the whole interest started about six months ago when he began pointing to number plates and saying, "That!" His way of asking what something is. The number plate on my car and his daddy's both have the letter A so that was the first letter that he began to recognise. Before we knew it he was going around and pointing to every A he saw and saying it aloud to us. I didn't think much of it except that I realised that this was his first step in reading symbols, an important building block in literacy development . As weeks went by, Lachlan began pointing to his easel and saying, 'A.' My husband and I followed his command  

Reading a story

and wrote the letter for him to see. Lachlan would get very excited and request for another and another...Before you knew it there were several pages filled with 'A's. At least he insisted that we write them in various colours of his choosing to keep it interesting. While this was going on he began to ask 'that' about other letters he would see; mostly in books or on boxes in the house, etc. As he memorised those he began to ask that we write those as well on his easel. Memory recall in infancy and toddlerhood has always been fascinating to me. We certainly underestimate how much children are capable of doing. Another mistake we often do is put child development in a box and expect children to all be at a certain level. It is important to listen to and observe our children; making sure we don't push them while at the same time ensuring that we are provide a challenge. A child like Lachlan for example who is very much a 'thinker' longs for cognitive stimulation and is intrigued by things of that nature. A child who is a 'mover' for example will yearn for things that stimulate him in a locomotive or manipulative way such a climbing or throwing something. All children have different interest which create different desires. We as parent need to respect that and guide them in the area that fascinates them. Everything else will come together when it needs to. Right now it is all about fun and exploration.

Finding letters in a glossary

Since Lachlan has been having fun exploring letters, I put all my old teaching and researching knowledge together to try to think up creative ways for him to explore the wonderful world of letters. First, I looked at the books we have at home, which are a lot! (I buy sooooo many at garage sales each month.) I took out books with a focus on letters and also those that had a glossory in back or started a paragraph with an extra large letter; these letters jump out and Lachlan really loves to point them out to me. He he couldn't remember a letter he would point to it, look at me and say, "Mama?" I would then tell him the letter. Again, I have always followed his lead. A lot of people when they hear Lachlan name letters assume that I have sat down and taught Lachlan the alphabet. That simply has never been the case. We never sit down in front of a chart or with flashcards and begin reciting letters. I would of course if Lachlan initiated and that was fun to him. There really isn't a need to do that as we are surrounded by print all around our house and when we go out to the shops. He asks and we provide an answer and a dialogue begins. He does have some tag board letter cards but I simply put them in a basket and he does his own thing with them. Since he could crawl he would sit for over half an hour lining letters up along the bottom of the french doors in our house. He didn't want interference from us. He just wanted to look at them and put them in some kind of 'Lachlan order.'

Drawing an 'O' in the air.

I am big on provocation, as I also teach early childhood professionals to use it. Provocation just means allowing a child to expand on an idea they have by asking a question. For older children it is best to ask open-ended questions, meaning ones that will not get a single word response (best used on teenagers as well!) So instead of asking, "Is that a tiger you are painting?" or "What are you painting?;" Something such as, "tell me about your picture," would be a better way to get a descriptive response.

Exploring magnet letters

Pre-verbal toddlers are a bit trickier when it comes to provocation for obvious reasons. They can however understand the majority of what you are saying so if you ask them a question they can answer you by pointing or doing another action to communicate. Body language where you'll be getting the most of your info. Lachlan does some sign language so he indicates to us if he wants 'more' or something. If he is ready to move on he is very eager to say his favourite word, "no!" Regarding provocations, if Lachlan is showing me his magnets with the letter A and saying A, I might ask him, "where are the other A's." This often triggers something inside of him to create a new idea. For example we were out the beach house last week and he was playing with his letter magnets and he began grouping all the A's and O's and E's together and also sorting them by colour. This was just something spontaneous we noticed him doing while we were eating. To expand upon this I might ask, "where are the yellow O's" to see if he can identify the colours. Again, go with the flow. It works the best. That particular time I just let him play. I would encourage you not to interrupt every independent play session your child is engaging in to "test" him. Allow them to have their time and avoid interrupting their train of thought.

Lining up letters

Saying "R"

Something sad I often see is the systematic teaching of young children. I say 'sad' because it makes learning become a chore. Because I use a more emergent and natural approach I actually see it as militant and very authoritarian; which is probably harsh but the style really makes me feel so many emotions. Sure flashcards may be fun initially when they are new but being expected to sit and memorise or recite them time and time again becomes a drill and the fun is lost. Learning is lost because it has become something that is no longer meaningful to the child and let's face it; children will not want to learn unless the experience is meaningful to them.Think about that: what is meaningful to your child? It most likely is something very different to what is meaningful to you. This is when we have to go back in time, be nostalgic and think about what inspired us as children. Generally it is something so simplistic. For me it was dirt, leaves, sticks and water. With those resources I could do anything, make anything, be anywhere. I could create a meaningful piece of work and I'm sure I didn't really care if it was meaningful to my parents. (That's the whole ego-centrism stage talking in childhood)

While I've been writing this blog I've been go back through all my photos of Lachlan related to his literacy development. There are so many! Every stage we seem to have incorporated some new way of learning; letter cards, magnets, drawings. One thing that is constant every day though is books. Any literacy expert will tell you that there is just nothing bad that will come out of books! We eat them up in our house! I've included a lot of photos throughout the year of Lachlan and his literacy journey. He has changed so much; especially after learning to walk--he lost all that baby fat!

A quiet place, alone reading

So the best I can offer is to let things occur naturally with your child; a no pressure approach. Infancy and toddlerhood is a time of exploration. There will be plenty of taking orders when they reach school-age and the working world. Let them make sense of their world in their own unique way and allow them to find their own interests. When you do this, they will find passion and love in something as they can claim it as their own accomplishment. Offer guidance and support and expand upon what you see they are wanting to learn. All of this takes a lot of listening and observing. For some parents it will take patience and a new way of thinking. Children truly become confident and talented in areas that excite them. They show this by smiling, clapping and persistently returning to the same thing over and over again. Please don't take that away from them. They will tell you the type of learner they are; whether it is a hands-on, visual or an auditory one. It is up to use to listen and follow their lead. So give off the computer and see what your little one is up to and let him or her teach YOU a thing or two....Until next time :-)