More than the ABCs

A look at learning in the Early Learning - Kindergarten Program

In the Early Learning - Kindergarten program in Rainbow Schools, children are learning more than the traditional ABCs.  They are learning what it means to be readers and writers.  Four and five year olds are learning that words convey messages, that they can interpret those messages and can use words to communicate their own messages.

"For young children, their own name, the letters of their name, and the names of the significant people in their lives are one of the first and most important reading opportunities that adults recognize," says Rainbow District School Board Superintendent Sharon Speir. "Children quickly learn the names of the other children in their classroom, they read these names, copy these names and use them as a reference for reading and writing. Reading the names of family and friends has personal meaning to the children, making them memorable and an ideal starting point for developing literacy skills."

In Early Learning-Kindergarten classrooms, teachers and early childhood educators offer daily invitations and opportunities for children to work with letters and with words through the materials they provide and the questions they ask. In the Early Learning classroom at Princess Anne Public School, for instance, Teacher Lorna Oshell and Early Childhood Educator, Sheena Moyle, invite children to create words using a variety of materials in the classroom every day. Magnetic letters on magnetic boards, scrabble letters, and markers on white boards prove to be wonderful tools for working with words.

"Children quickly learn where these tools are in the classroom to assist them in their word work," says Early Learning Consultant Tricia Dixon-Van Mierlo. "The other day, I watched two children go get the name cards they needed in order to record a letter or a name. No one needed to prompt them to use these words as resources for their own writing. They are motivated to read and write about things that are important to them."

"Watching children learn to decode the meaning of the world of print is fascinating," says Superintendent Speir. "We can learn so much about how young children learn, when we pay attention to what has meaning for them."

Photos:
Emily Rayner, 5, and Tristan Lalonde, 5, create their name in the Early Learning – Kindergarten classroom at Princess Anne Public School.