Training Guides for the Head Start Learning Community:
Emerging Literacy: Linking Social Competence to Learning
| Contents
| Preface
| Introduction
| Module 1
| Module 2
| Module 3
| Module 4 | |
Introduction
PurposeThis technical guide is designed to enhance the skills of education staff in collaborating with families to support children's development of language skills.
Emerging Literacy: Linking Social Competence and Learning describes emerging literacy for children from birth through the preschool years. The emerging literacy philosophy does not refer to children's readiness to learn different language skills. Instead, literacy development is seen as a continuous process which begins in infancy with exposure to oral language, written language, books, and stories. It is a process that has its roots in the home, with branches extending to other environments.1
Head Start is among the most important of these branches. Whether children and families are enrolled in center, home-based, family child care (FCC home), or combination programs, Head Start staff are in an ideal position to build on the language learning that takes place in each child's home. This guide helps staff create literacy-rich environments in center, group socialization, and FCC home settings and gives families the information, support, and materials they need to encourage their children's emerging literacy. Participants learn how to engage children in meaningful conversations, help children express their own ideas and feelings, promote a love of reading, encourage children by listening to what they are trying to say rather than correcting the way they say it, and set the stage for children to make their own literacy discoveries.
Outcomes
After completing this guide, participants will be able to:
Support children's acquisition of emerging literacy skills--listening, speaking, reading, and writing--in the context of home, family, and the program
Converse with children in ways that encourage them to talk with other people
Encourage children to develop a love of reading that will support their learning in school
Provide culturally relevant language and literacy experiences that offer many opportunities for children to express themselves and build knowledge and understanding
Collaborate with parents and other staff to create literacy-rich environments (in home, center, group socialization, and FCC home settings) that allow children to explore the different ways people use written words (print) to communicate and record thoughts and ideas
Support children's skills in their home languages as they acquire English language skills
Audience
This guide is for education staff in center, home-based, and combination settings, including classroom teams (teachers, assistants, and volunteers) and home visitors. It is also appropriate for FCC providers. Interested family members may want to participate.
Performance Standards
This guide supports the following child development and education concepts, which are based on the Head Start Program Performance Standards:
- Parents are the principal influence in their children's lives.
- Staff and parents share information about emerging literacy. They
plan ways to support language development in home, center, group
socialization, and/or FCC home settings.
- Staff help children understand and use language in an environment
that encourages easy communication among children and between
children and adults.
- Staff can create an environment in which children gradually work toward recognizing that letters and numbers are symbols that
represent concepts and ideas.
- Programs recruit staff, volunteers, and consultants who can talk to
children in their home languages.
- The curriculum is consistent with the Head Start Program
Performance Standards, is based on sound child development
principles about how children grow and learn, and supports each
child's social and emotional development, cognitive and language
skills, and physical development.
- The child development and education approach for all children is
developmentally and linguistically appropriate, responds to each
child as an individual, and supports and respects gender, culture,
language, ethnicity, and family composition.
- Head Start should support family literacy through materials, services, and activities that are provided by the program or through referral to another agency in the community.
This technical guide, Emerging Literacy: Linking Social Competence and Learning, is designed to further develop the skills that education staff need to promote children's emerging literacy--their listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills.
By completing the activities in this guide, participants will achieve the following Guide Outcomes:
- Provide environments that encourage children to develop listening,
speaking, reading, and writing skills--at home and at Head Start
- Respond to children's nonverbal and verbal communications and
encourage children to express their ideas and feelings to others
- Read aloud to and with children every day--one-on-one and in
small groups--to introduce children to books and oral and written
language, promote thinking skills, and encourage children to love
books and learning
- Plan and carry out literacy experiences that build on children's
interests and activities
- Model the many ways adults use oral and written language to
accomplish goals, provide information, and communicate with
other people
- Respect and build on children's home language skills while
providing opportunities for them to learn English language skills
Each module includes module outcomes, key concepts, and background information. The Module Outcomes were developed from the Guide Outcomes. Emerging Literacy: Linking Social Competence and Learning contains the following modules:
Module 1: Emerging Literacy: Supporting a Natural Process
This module provides an overview of emerging literacy, the four interrelated language skills, and the skills used to support the language development of all children, including those who are learning a second language and those with disabilities.
Module 2: From Cooing to Talking: Partners in Conversation
This module enhances the staff's ability to listen and respond to children, engage them as equal partners in conversations, and encourage their use of listening and speaking skills during routines, while playing with peers, and during other daily activities.
Module 3: The Magic World of Reading: Opening Doors for Children
This module helps staff improve their skills in choosing books, reading aloud to children, inviting discussions about books, and planning follow-up activities that enhance children's enjoyment and understanding of books.
Module 4: Setting the Stage for Literacy Explorations
This module allows staff to create literacy-rich environments in Head Start settings, recognize and support children's drawing and writing skills, and promote literacy exploration through the environment and activities related to children's experiences and interests.
Each module has specific outcomes for participants to achieve, and each activity is designed to fulfill one or more outcome. For easy reference, the outcomes are listed with the activity.
Each module includes a Key Concepts section that summarizes the main ideas addressed in the workshop and coaching activities. The Background Information section of each module provides a more detailed discussion of the key concepts. Trainers can use this information to review the content covered in the module, present mini-lectures, or distribute as a resource for participants.
Each module closes with Next Steps, suggested activities for building on the skills developed through this guide. Some of the activities can be documented in a participant's professional portfolio, an ongoing collection of items that demonstrate an individual's professional growth and achievement.
Continuing Professional Development, a section that appears after the modules, includes suggested activities participants can undertake to sustain and enhance the skills they develop through this guide.
A Resources section at the end of the guide describes books, journal articles, and audiovisual materials that offer in-depth information about the topics covered in this guide.
The Appendices section of the guide provides participants with detailed information that they may use as they complete the activities in the guide and as a resource on the job.
The following Training Guides for the Head Start Learning Community can be used in conjunction with this guide:
Observation and Recording: Tools for Decision Making
Engaging Parents
Setting the Stage: Including Children with Disabilities in Head Start
Individualizing: A Plan for Success
Curriculum: A Blueprint for Action
Definition of Icons
| Coaching |  |
A training strategy that fosters the development of skills through tailored instruction, demonstrations, practice, and feedback. The activities are written for a coach working closely with one to three participants. |
| Workshop |  |
A facilitated group training strategy that fosters the development of skills through group interaction. These activities are written for up to 25 participants working in small or large groups with one or two trainers. |
| Next Steps: Ideas to Extend Practice |
 |
Activities assigned by the trainer immediately following the completion of the module to help participants review key information, practice skills, and examine their progress toward expected outcomes of the module. |
| Continuing Professional Development |
 |
Follow-up activities supporting continued staff development in the skills addressed in a particular training guide including:
|
W = Workshop Activities C = Coaching Activities
1 Dorothy S. Strickland and Lesley Mandel Morrow, editors, Emerging Literacy: Young Children Learn to Read and Write (Newark, Del.: International Reading Association, 1989), vii.
Copyright © 1999 Head Start Publications Management Center. All rights reserved.
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