Literacy - More Than Reading and Writing

 Literacy is more than learning to read and write.

Becoming literate also incorporates the development of essential language, cognitive, social, and emotional skills as children interact and explore the world around them.

Reading books with children is a very important first interaction, as much as singing Nursery rhymes or pointing out letters, colours, and numbers during a walk around the neighbourhood.

Experiences like this encourage language development and social skills such as listening, understanding information and turn-taking.

Books can be the base for helping children understand concepts that can be incorporated by pairing books with play spaces.

Much loved book titles such as Who Sank The Boat? by Pamela Allen can be followed by setting up water play experiences that are focused on floating and sinking activities with the characters from the story.

Wombat Stew by Marcia Vaughan, can lead to pretend cooking experiences in a sand pit, sensory tabletop activity including wombat, dingo echidna characters, or mixing stew in a mud kitchen. 

Setting up play spaces invites further opportunities for children to remember what they have heard and re-tell the story to themselves or with others, which is one of the critical elements of developing emergent literacy skills.

Through this type of imaginative play, they also learn that stories have a beginning, middle, and end.

Children love to re-read favourite books. It makes them feel part of the reading experience and encourages them to discover the power of communication through imagination.

Books that rhyme, have a rhythm, and feature repetition support children to be able to recall the story. Children’s author Linley Dodd, who wrote The Hairy Maclary, is famous for this as most children know of her much-loved animal characters, such as 'Bottomley Potts' the Dalmation all 'covered in spots' or 'Hercules Morse' the Great Dane who is as 'big as a horse!'

The rhythm of the story engages children, the familiar predictable text supports them to remember the words as they join in the reading. The exciting and suspenseful conclusion that children can anticipate is part of the love of reading and literacy as stories build each page.

Adding other props such as hand or finger puppets can enrich these experiences further, often leading to children creating their own versions of stories or additional characters.