Literacy is not just reading.  The basics of literacy are observing, listening, talking and describing, mark making and writing.  Many of the skills are inter-related (e.g. making a shopping list requires you to observe what you already have and listen to what the family would like for meals before writing the list!  We know that you all do activities like this, so be confident that you are educating your child in literacy!

Key Skills:

• listening, talking, observing and describing– you do all of these in any face-to-face conversations with your child such as planning activities or discussing clothes for the day. Adding other games such as clapping out some names or common words helps your child understand the structure of words, and the concept of syllables.  After reading your child a story, ask the child to tell you about it is a great way to check that they have listened and understood.

• reading– when reading with your child, use the pictures to back up what the words are saying. Reading can happen in many ways as well as bedtime stories. Try looking for environmental print when out for your daily walk – ask if the child can tell you some signs they see (e.g. McDonalds, Tesco, bus stop, ladies or gents toilet, road signs).  Reading recipes or instructions (these could be words or pictures e.g. cake recipe or instructions for building a lego model) all counts too!

• mark making and writing– as your child learns to write, they begin by giving meaning to the random marks they make.These marks can be made with pens or pencils, but also with paint, chalk, water, sand, stones which can mark the path etc.  Have fun and experiment with different ways of making marks!  Other activities such as sewing or scissor skills are also really good preparation for writing, so giving your child a pair of suitable scissors and some paper or a magazine is a great activity.

Over the next few weeks, Miss Brown and Mrs Robb will suggest some literacy tasks which can help to develop these skills.  Please feel free to try them and to adapt/ extend them. Remember that we would love to see pictures of your activities along with the child’s explanations (that is literacy!) on your Learning Journals!