Literacy

Learning to read and write is critical to a child’s success in school and later in life.

In Together Family Child Care we are committed not only to helping young children become literate but also to fostering their motivation to read and write for enjoyment, information, and communication. To reach these outcomes, we provide appropriate and effective teaching practices for young children, not just adaptations of what may work in the later grades. These practices respond to young children’s changing developmental characteristics as well as to their culture, language, and individual learning needs. We try to implement varied, research-based teaching methods that will help all young children gain competence in language and literacy.

In Together Family Childcare, our literacy teaching practices are based on what research reveals:

• Children take their first critical steps toward learning to read and write very early in life.

• Children do not become literate automatically; careful planning and instruction are essential.

• Ongoing assessment of children’s knowledge and skills helps teachers plan effective instruction.

• No one teaching method or approach is likely to be effective for all children, at all times.

• As children move from preschool into kindergarten and the primary grades, instruction focused on phonemic awareness, letter sound recognition, segmenting words into sounds, and decoding printed text will support later reading competence.