Literacy Lessons at B’s School-
Children are immersed in learning and understanding language. In our weekly lessons at B’s Preschool we built off of students’ oral language skills and begin to bridge the gap between written and spoken language. Anyone who has interacted with English spelling has probably noticed that English doesn’t have a system that lends itself to simply sounding out words. This is because English is a morphophonemic language, not a solely phonemic one. Building student’s knowledge of morphology is a wonderful place to start their literacy journey. By studying morphology, students are able to grow their vocabulary and build a solid understanding of the primary consideration of English spelling.
One way that students’ grow in their understanding of morphology is by participating in our weekly word bag activity. Each week we study a different word family and read a book that is linked to that word in some way. After our story, children take turns drawing a word card from bag and announcing the spelling aloud for the group. As a group, we analyze whether the word on the card is in the morphological family or not. B’s young scholars know that a word in the family will share a meaning and a structure. If you’d like to read more about word bag activities, Fiona Hamilton has wonderful examples on her webpage.
After the students complete their word family activity, we meet at the table to learn the script letter of the week. During our script lesson, children learn the pathway of each lowercase letter, at a pace of one letter per week. The pathway is first modeled on the hand, which allows the children to make a personal and tactile connection to the letter. After the pathway is traced on the hand, the children practice using a good three finger grasp to write the letter on the page. Students who are ready also have the option of writing the word of the day at the bottom of their page, and can even practice adding various prefixes and suffixes to alter the sense and meaning of the base.
Students who attend literacy lessons at B’s will have strong letter identification skills, be able to write the 26 lowercase letters, and have knowledge of morphology as the primary consideration for reading and spelling. These skills will establish a strong foundation for kindergarten and beyond.