Hello Parents! A new topic for discussion this week is environmental print. It is everywhere. How many times have you been driving down the road with your child and they see a McDonald’s sign and scream, “I want a happy meal! Please, please, please can we go?” You didn’t mention McDonald’s or anything it serves, but somehow your child knows that you have driven by there. This is environmental print. They are reading the environment around them and interpreting it in many ways. They see the sign and know that it has something they like. Whether they may not know how to read yet, but there are many signs and symbols that your child can read and know what it says without knowing how to spell it or even what letters it contains. This is another aspect to understanding that your children know more about language than we think they do. Before your children entered my classroom they already knew a whole lot reading, writing and language. They read street signs, labels on cans and cereal boxes, advertisements, buildings, etc. Before your children learn the letters of the alphabet and the sounds they make, your children can read and interpret language. Before they can understand the letters of the alphabet and the sounds they make, they need to understand the abstract. They need to analyze objects and interpret them in their own ways first to be able to understand apple starts with the letter “a” and makes a long “a” sound. Throughout the year we are going to be focusing on interpreting what we already know in order to better understand written language and learn how to read and write like adults.
It definitely is something not thought of often connected to literacy, but it really tells you a lot about how the child is learning and making meaning of the things around them. First it is symbols, soon they will understand it only has one meaning, and before you know it they will understand that words have a certain meaning, are made of letters and sounds and all of the rules associated with literacy! It really is a step at a time for them, and having a strong foundation will always help.
ReplyDeleteI think this post will cause the parents who read this to remember and come to realizations. Most people have had these subtle moments. This post does a very good job of explaining the significance of these instances.
ReplyDeleteIt is great that you brought up the apple example from class. It is very important that, we as teachers recognize that children will not just magically understand a concept. They will have to be taught the basics. After we see that they have mastered these facts then we can move on to topics that are more complex. We want to make sure that we are building on the basics.
ReplyDeleteOften times, parents may shy away from being bombarded with information and paragraphs using terms that only educators would typically know. Introducing the topic in a way that parents would understand is a way that makes them want to listen and understand. This will, in turn, encourage the parents to be more involved in their child's education, improving the progress of each student in the classroom.
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