Week Three

October 11, 2012, 10:30-11 a.m.

Early literacy practice: Talk

  • Children learn language and other early literacy skills by listening to their parents and otherstalk.
  • As children hear spoken language, they learn new words and what they mean.
  • They learn aboutthe world around them and important general knowledge.
  • Your child’s favorite voice is yours!

Early literacy skill: Vocabulary

Vocabulary, knowing the names of things, is an extremely important skill for children to have when they are learning to read. Most children enter school knowing between 3,000 and 5,000 words. Vocabulary and comprehension after 4th grade are the 2 strongest predictors of school completion and school success.

What Can You Do to Help Build this Skill?

  • “Talking” progresses through gesture and facial expression, cries, babble, single words or short phrases that may not be understandable, then with more understandable words, then short sentences, then longer sentences.
  • Children can repeat what you say before they can respond to what you say.
  • Encourage children to recount events and stories in sequence only after they are comfortable talking.
  • Asking questions of very young children does not encourage language as it does for the preschooler.
  • For children who are just beginning to talk, narrating what is happening, talking in “parentese” until 9 months, saying the names of things, leaving time for the child to repeat what you say, and imitating the sounds that the child is making are all ways to encourage the child’s talking.

Books with interesting words and vocabulary

  • Ehlert, Lois. Rrralph.

New York : Beach Lane Books, c2011.

The narrator describes discovering how Ralph the dog can talk, appropriately saying words such as "roof," "rough," "bark," and "wolf."

P EHLERT

  • Isadora, Rachel. Say hello!

New York : G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2010.

A little girl greets people in her neighborhood in many different languages.

P ISADORA

  • Fleming, Denise. Shout! Shout it out!

New York : Henry Holt, 2011.

Mouse invites the reader to shout out what he or she knows as they review numbers, letters, and easy words.

P FLEMING

Plume, Ilse. The Bremen town musicians.

Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, c1980.

A retelling of the Grimm tale in which an old donkey, dog, cat, and rooster, no longer wanted by their masters, set out for Bremen to become musicians.

P PLUME

Rhymes with interesting words and vocabulary

Opening Rhyme

Open them, shut them, give a little clap!

Open them, shut them, lay them in your lap.

Creep them, creep them, creep them, right up to your chin. Open up your little mouth, but don’t let them in!

(repeat 1st two lines)

The Cat and the Plum Tree

Diddlety, diddlety, dumpty

The cat ran up the plum tree

Half a crown to fetch her down

Diddlety, diddlety, dumpty

Mistress Mary

Mary, Mary quite contrary,

How does your garden grow?

With silver bells and cockle shells,

And pretty maids all in a row.

Jack and Jill

Jack and Jill went up the hill

to fetch a pail of water.

Jack fell down and broke his crown.

And Jill came tumbling after.

Up Jack got and home did trot

As fast as he could caper

He went to bed to mend his head

With vinegar and brown paper.

Then Jill came in, and she did grin,

To see Jack's paper plaster;

Then Jack did pout, and threw her out

For laughing at his disaster.

To Market, to Market

To market, to market to buy a fat pig,

Home again, home again, jiggetty jig.

To market, to market to buy a fat hog,

Home again, home again, jiggetty jog.

To market, to market to buy a plum bun,

Home again, home again, market is done.

Closing

My hands say “thank you” with a clap, clap, clap

My toes say “thank you” with a tap, tap, tap

Clap, clap, clap, tap, tap, tap

Rrrrrrroll your hands and wave “good-bye”!

(suit actions to words)

Take-home Tips

  • Make reading a conversation; talk about what’s on the page, including new words! Use “Wh” questions.
  • Frequency matters! Children learn the words they hear the most.
  • Keep it personal! Children learn words for what they are interested in!
  • Repeat and expand using new vocabulary and/or more complex sentence structures.