Essential Early Literacy Teaching Strategies

Early literacy instruction for preschool children can be effective when teachers provide the children with developmentally appropriate settings, materials, experiences, and social support. In the article "The Essentials of Early Literacy Instruction", the authors discuss the eight essential teaching strategies for early literacy. These strategies are: rich teacher talk, storybook reading, phonological awareness activities, alphabet activities, support for emergent reading and writing, shared book experiences, and integrated content-focused activities. All of these strategies are necessary in order for children to acquire literacy.

Rich teacher talk should be used in large group, small group, and one-on-one situations. It is important to use new or unusual words, extend children's comments, discuss challenging content, and listen and respond to what children are saying. This can expand children's vocabulary and thinking skills. Teachers should read aloud to their students once or twice a day. Along with the storytelling, a teacher should have conversations and activities for before, during, and after reading. Teachers should provide activities that increase phonological awareness. Examples of these activities are playing games and listening to stories, poems, and songs. Alphabet activities should be used to engage children in the exploration of letters so that they are able to identify the letters of the alphabet. Using direct instruction to make a personal connection to a letter for a child helps with letter recognition.

Teachers should encourage children to read and write in any form. Children should have access to books and other types of print materials throughout the classroom. Children should also have access to a writing center that provides a variety of materials as well as play-related writing materials in other centers in the room. Shared book experiences use big books with enlarged text. Teachers should point to words while reading and draw children's attention to basic concepts. These may include: distinction between words and pictures, left-to-right and top-to-bottom sequences, and book concepts (cover, title, page, etc.).



The last strategy is the integrated, content-focused activities. Teachers should provide opportunities for children to explore subjects that interest them. The idea of this is to get children using oral language, writing, and reading to learn about the world. They can do this through listening to the teacher read a book about the topic, gathering data through observation, experiments, and interviews, writing to record information and observations, and engaging in dramatic play to express what they have learned. This strategy results in the advancement of children's language and literacy skills as well as gaining useful background knowledge.