Reading strategies in the preschool and kindergarten classroom change all the time.

In my days in Bank Street College it was reading as a language experice than it moved to whole language, now its emergent literacy.

Whatever its called there are certain reading strategies that are part of all of these concepts that help children to learn and be better readers..

Children love to draw and paint and then to tell you about their artwork. When they do that, write it down. Write down stories that they tell you, words that they tell you, and write your own stories for them.

What this does  is it teaches kids that reading is “talk written down”. Many kids don’t make that connection so easily.

Aside from having their words written down it is important to have as much writing all around them so they get used to seeing the written word and relating it to something specific.

Children’s names are particularly important to them and in the classroom you can make use of ALL of the children’s names.  Kids learn very quickly when what they are reading is so close to their hearts, their names. By doing many of these activities in no time at all the children will know how to read every child’s name in that class.

• Put their names on their cubbies
• Make an attendance chart that is large and visible with their names
• Create a memory game with the kids names
• Have a job chart up with rotating kids names
• Names should go on all of their artwork
• Or they can have their names in a box that you can use to tack up next to their art displays on the walls.

Other forms of reading around the room include:

• Weather charts
• Calendars
• Block signs
• Labelled signs on bulletin boards
• Recipes
• Labelled items in the classroom

As children get used to your writing things they say down and seeing language all around the room , it sparks great interest in reading more and writing. And as we know the more interest there is in a subject the  quicker they learn it.

As you  write for and with the children be very carefulthat your handwriting is clear and legible manuscript writing.

If we want the children to learn good reading and writing habits we must make sure that they are seeing wrods as close to manuscript as possible, clear and legible. (Even if we usually can’t read our own handwriting).

If you are a home school parent than you can do many of the same activities as a classroom teacher by labelling items in the home and doing lots of writing with the children. I guess you can’t spend too much times on names as that is quite limited in a home school environment.