Literacy Curriculum
Literacy curriculum at the Arlitt Center is a careful blend of whole language instruction and phonemic awareness. In the classroom, literacy is approached through whole language instruction, allowing for children to have experiences with words and learning to make sense of words through meaningful daily interactions. Within this scope teachers find opportunities to provide children with phonemic awareness, learning about the letters and sounds that make up the words the children are working with. Our overall focus is to help children construct relationships between written and oral language.
Through years of field testing and careful observation, Arlitt teachers have developed a literacy curriculum that is both interesting and meaningful to children in the classroom. Books included in the book area of the room are selected because they are high quality literature, interesting to the children, and address learning goals for the classroom, such as a focus on rhyming words or alliteration. Teachers also often provide story extensions in the classroom that allow children to interact more deeply with a particular story, thinking about the structure, sequence, and details of that story.
Interactive charts are a mainstay of the Arlitt literacy curriculum. These charts, featuring a short poem, song lyric, or excerpt from a book, are interactive in nature, allowing children to manipulate words in the text by changing specific key words within the text using removable word cards. These charts foster the development of print concepts, such as the directionality of text, as well as phonemic concepts, such as beginning sounds in words.
Teachers provide children with meaningful daily interactions with words in many different ways. The children's names are used often throughout the room, from their cubbies and name cards to language charts and saving a spot for the muscle room on a waiting list. The names of the children are featured in the room to give them experience with words that is incredibly significant.
Children also interact with words in the classroom through environmental print. This print, which naturally occurs in the child's environment, can be found in the classroom in the dramatic play area in the form of food containers, in the block area in the form of road signs, in the music area in the form of language charts, and when books are located in other areas of the room to support various activities.
Children are also exposed to print in the classroom in the form of labels. Particular areas of the classroom are labeled because the labels serve a specific and meaningful function. On the art shelves labels are used so that the children may clean up materials neatly and independently. At lunch, name labels are used so the children can identify their seat as well as who else is sitting at their table for that meal.
Teachers also work to provide interesting and functional writing experiences in the classroom as well. At the writing center in addition to word cards, which provide children with interesting words and accompanying picture cues that they might copy down on paper, teachers may include slips that children can fill out to request sitting next to someone at group time or lunch. There is also blank paper for children to write notes on to request a visit to another classroom or to a family member to ease separation anxiety. Teachers at Arlitt understand the importance of accepting all stages of writing, from beginning scribble to letters and letter-like forms, as part of children's literacy development and provide many meaningful opportunities for children see models of writing as well as to write themselves.
Overall, the goals of the Arlitt literacy curriculum include:
- Developing familiarity and enjoyment of books and reading
- Providing many opportunities for children to interact with print
- Fostering the connection of letter-sound relationships and letter-word relationships
- Vocabulary development
- Supporting construction of literacy concepts
- Nurturing emergent reading and writing skills
- Facilitate reading and writing
- Expanding understanding of book language
- Encouraging feelings of competency in reading and writing