An Integrated Play-based Curriculum for Young Children by Olivia N. Saracho

Author:Olivia N. Saracho
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Routledge

Children’s literacy development should focus on the communication of oral and written language in a meaningful context (Saracho, 1993). Their learning of oral and written language may appear as playing and exploring. Reading stories and poems, telling stories, listening to children’s stories, engaging children in predicting and sequencing stories, expanding the children’s vocabulary based on the stories, using puppets to retell stories, reading poetry, dramatizing stories, discussing stories, writing stories, and interacting about stories promotes the children’s literacy development. These literature experiences are discussed in Chapter 8. See Box 10.2 (Spodek & Saracho, 1994b).

Box 10.2. Experiences to Promote Young Children’s Literacy Development

Reading stories and poems. Stories and poems can be read to young children to share the joy and wonder of broadening their knowledge about the world of books. Children will enjoy the stories and poems read.

Telling stories. Children need to listen to stories rather than having them read to them. At times the content of the story can be modified to make it more meaningful and to maintain the children’s interest. For example, stories can be personalized by substituting the characters’ names with those of the children.

Listening to children’s stories. Children can share stories of an important event, such as a visit to a relative. Teachers can listen to the children’s stories and engage them in conversation or record the story for the children to later illustrate. These can be read many times and taken home to share with family members.

Engaging children in predicting and sequencing in stories. Predictable books, such as The Gingerbread Man (Kimmel, 1993), can engage children in the prediction process. They can predict what is going to happen next and check their predictions as the teachers read the story. For example, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble (Steig, 1969) is a good book that can be used to help children predict the next event. Sylvester Duncan is a young donkey who discovers a magic pebble and experiences a series of humorous and suspenseful situations. Another book that is good for prediction is Benjamin’s (1992) What’s Up the Coconut Tree? Children can predict every time a coconut bumps on one of the animals’ heads. When the animals ask the Lion (King of the Jungle) for assistance, they can predict what the lion would find up the coconut tree. The children can illustrate the story with a palm tree with coconuts and different animals (such as a puzzled lion, zebra).

Expanding the children’s vocabulary based on the stories. Some books can be used to expand the children’s vocabulary with repetitious phrases, such as The Gingerbread Man (Kimmel, 1993) and Millions of Cats (Gág, 1928). Children enjoy repeating the phrase, “I run as fast as I can. You can’t catch me. I’m the Gingerbread Man.” They also find delight in Wanda Gág’s phrases in Millions of Cats. They love repeating, “Millions of cats, billions and trillions and zillions of cats.” The repetition helps the children learn new vocabulary or reinforce well-known words.

Using puppets to retell stories. Puppets can be used to expand the meaning of the story and extend the children’s interest.

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