This would include labels, attendance charts, calendars, alphabet charts, Word Walls, experience charts, lists, recipes, bulletin board captions, reminders, etc. Copies of favourite rhymes and songs, etc. Invite children to find words in the room that they think they can read and give children a pointer. Encourage and appreciate all efforts. Include Read Around the Room as one of your choices at Center Time.
Children can work individually or in pairs.
Acknowledge their efforts to use problem-solving strategies and the amount of reading they can do. Give out blank cards to any children that feel they know how to write any of the names of objects in the room. Allow them to attach the new labels. One of the most important ways adults can foster literacy development is simply by responding positively to children's attempts at reading and writing. We facilitate literacy growth when we treat children as already readers and writers, when we accept approximations and errors as necessary to growth, and when we convey the feeling that 'of course' they will become proficient at reading and writing.