The Primary English Encyclopedia: The Heart of the Curriculum, Third Edition
This includes all the written language a child encounters including notices in parks, advertisements on bill boards, shop and restaurant signs, writing on cereal packets and written language on the television and on CD-ROMs. Children often notice the letters that make up their own names and this interest in print needs to be reinforced.
Early years teachers bring much of what the child sees in the way of print in the environment into the Nursery and Reception classroom. The home corner might be a shop with all the labels and signs involved or a café with menus, bills and newspapers. Graham and Kelly suggest we help children make notices based on those they have seen in the world outside the classroom (Graham and Kelly, 2007).
So we might have ‘Please keep the reading corner tidy’ and ‘Please wash your hands after feeding the tadpoles’. All this helps with the building of a sight vocabulary as children become readers and writers. Above all, it shows children the social purposes of writing and its importance in everyday life. For more about how environmental print helps children’s understanding of literacy see Hall (1987).
Graham, Judith and Kelly, Alison (2007) Reading Under Control: Teaching Reading in the Primary School London: David Fulton.
Hall, N. (1987) ‘Environmental print’ in The Emergence of Literacy Sevenoaks: Hodder & Stoughton.
This is the complete article, containing 224 words
(approx. 1 page at 300 words per page).
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