Pre-kindergarten Literacy Curriculum

NAEYC and IRA (the International Reading Association) have published a joint position statement on Developmentally Appropriate Practices (DAP) for reading and writing in early childhood programs. It stresses that literacy is emergent and develops along a continuum. The early childhood years - birth through age eight - are the most important period for literacy development. However, the position statement also acknowledges that often the early beginnings of literacy acquisition have resulted in the use of inappropriate teaching practices suited to older children. The purpose of this curriculum is to offer a variety of DAP activities that can be used with our students in order to provide the foundation they need to read and write.

Activities are included for the following areas:

Phonological Awareness: The sounds of language, including rhythms, rhyme, sound similarities and at the highest level, awareness of syllables and phonemes.

Letter Knowledge: The ability to identify the letters of the alphabet.

The Alphabetic Principle: The understanding that there is a systematic relationship between letters and sounds. Letters stand for phonemes, which are the smallest unit of sound. They combine to form syllables and words.

An Understanding of Print:

• Print represents the words that can be read aloud.
• We read and write left to right, top to bottom.
• The language of print - spaces, sentences, punctuation.

Comprehension Monitoring: The ability of children to examine their understanding of what they are reading when they are reading it. What is read makes sense.

Writing: Organizing marks to communicate for a purpose.